I'm very uneducated in syntax, so I apologize if this question is something really basic that everyone already knows.
English is a subject-verb-object language, and it is known to follow that pattern rather rigidly. However, I have noticed something interesting that can happen when English speakers quote other people. A quotative statement might be phrased like this:
"Unicorns are questionable," he said.
Or, it might be phrased like this:
"Unicorns are questionable," said Mark.
It appears to me that option two stands as an exception to SVO word order. The subject, Mark, follows the verb, to say. However, the first sentence follows the order, so I feel like this could be analyzed as "English uses variable word order for a quotative statement that follows the quote." Interestingly, the second construction doesn't really work with a pronoun; "said he" sounds rather archaic and non-standard, perhaps because we find it weird to use nominative pronouns at the end of a sentence.
I am wondering two things. First, is it correct to call post-quote quotatives an exception to English word order? Second, do other languages have features like this?
