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Advanced English Inversion Guide

This document discusses inversion in English, which is used for emphasis, drama, or formality. Inversion involves placing negative or limiting adverbs, such as never, hardly, or rarely, at the beginning of a sentence and switching the subject and auxiliary verb. For simple present or past tense sentences without an auxiliary verb, one must be added before performing the inversion. Certain adverbials, like not until or hardly, require completing the adverbial clause before inverting the main clause.

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Юлия Гаврилко
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103 views9 pages

Advanced English Inversion Guide

This document discusses inversion in English, which is used for emphasis, drama, or formality. Inversion involves placing negative or limiting adverbs, such as never, hardly, or rarely, at the beginning of a sentence and switching the subject and auxiliary verb. For simple present or past tense sentences without an auxiliary verb, one must be added before performing the inversion. Certain adverbials, like not until or hardly, require completing the adverbial clause before inverting the main clause.

Uploaded by

Юлия Гаврилко
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as KEY, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Inversion

negative and limiting adverbs

english
Inversion
Inversion happens in English for emphasis, dramatic purpose or
formality. This type of inversion uses negative and limiting adverbs -
these are a group of adverbs which limit the meaning of a verb or
make it negative.

Examples are never, hardly, no, rarely, seldom, little, barely, no sooner...than, in no way, under no
circumstances, nowhere, not (+time), (only+ time). This is not a complete list.
To invert a sentence move the adverbial to the beginning of the
sentence and invert the subject and auxiliary verb:

I had never met someone so interesting. 


becomes 
Never had I met someone so interesting.
He won't often go to work.
becomes
Not often will he go to work
In cases where the tense does not use an auxiliary verb in the
affirmative, such as the present simple or the past simple, one must be
added. 
Present Simple:
I rarely go outside.
becomes  
Rarely do I go outside.

They don't ever know what to do


becomes
Never do they know what to do.
Past Simple: (Notice how the verb changes from past tense to infinitive)
She seldom worked very hard.
becomes 
Seldom did she work very hard.
We never went to the shopping centre.
becomes
At no time did we go to the shopping centre.
Some negative or limiting adverbials require you to complete a
whole clause before the inversion takes place. 

I didn’t know what to do until I saw what had happened.


becomes 
Not until I saw what had happened did I know what to do.

In this case, ‘Not until I saw what happened’ is the adverbial clause. The
inversion takes place after this, in the main clause. 
'Hardly' puts the inversion in the adverbial clause. It uses 'than' and
'when' to connect with the main clause.

Hardly had I got home than the dog started barking.


Hardly had he got into the bath when the phone rang.
Little did they know means they didn't know. The subject can be
changed.

Little did they know that he had stolen all of their money.
(They didn't know he had stolen all of their money)
Little did he know that they would never meet again.
(He didn't know that they would never meet again.)

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