This paper examines the basic properties of subject and object in Arabic and characterizes them through their grammatical manifestation in a relational network. The study also investigates the relational properties of subject and object with respect to other grammatical notions such as relativization, reflexivization, and passivization. Data for the investigation are drawn from Arabic syntax. Although Arabic is a verb-subject-object (VSO) language, it has a construction created by a rule called noun phrase (NP) fronting, by which NPs are advanced to sentence initial position. To refute the claim that VSO languages, including Arabic, may have an underlying subject-verb-object (SVO) word order, the study demonstrates that, in spite of the fact that Arabic allows for topicalization, fronted NPs do not establish that Arabic has an underlying SVO word order. It is shown that a fronted NP construction which creates an SVO order is a word order derived from the basic VSO. In VSO languages rules exist that are sensitive to a structural difference between subject and object. The basic issue, at least in Arabic, is independent of the linear ordering of the affected NP. (MSE)