Inversion Flashcards
Optional inversion: verb comes before the subject
Necessary inversion: Auxiliary comes before the subject.
In the doorway stood Alex. (or Alex stood).
Rarely had I seen such a view.
Here comes
There goes
Here comes the bus.
Here comes lunch.
There goes Per Alvin.
My bike’s been stolen. There goes $100.
There goes the phone. Can you answer it?
With the verbs come, fly and go, we use the preposition before the verb, and the verb before the subject.
Along, away, back, down, in, off, out, up.
The door opened and in came the doctor.
As soon as I let go of the string, up went the balloon, high into the sky. (less formal: the balloon went up)
In formal: we can use inversion to substitute IF clause.
It would be a serious setback if the talks were to fail.
It would be a serious setback, were the talks to fail.
If you should need more information, phone our main office.
Should you need more information, phone our main office.
If Andy had asked, I would have been able to help.
Had Andy asked, I would have been able to help.
The negative of inversion we use NOT. (not a contraction).
Had the plane not been diverted, They would have arrived early.
In written:
we use inversion after AS and THAN.
If the subject is a pronoun, we don’t use inversion.
Paper was invented in China, as was the process of printing.
I believed, as did my colleagues, that the plan would work.
Research shows that parents watch more television than do their children.
We know a lot more about the universe than we did ten years ago.
Inversions can be used with negative adverbials at the beginning of a clause.
The subject and the first auxiliary are inverted, and DO is used with a simple tense. The subject here can be a noun or pronoun.
- never, rarely, seldom, barely, hardly, scarcely, when…before, no sooner than.
- only after, only if, only later, only once, only then, only when.
- only by, only with, only in.
- at no time, in no way, on no account, under/in no circunstance.
- NOT only, not also, not until, not since, not for one moment, not a +noun.
- Little, with a negative meaning.
- only after/if/when, or NOT until.
Seldom do we have goods returned to us because they are faulty.
Hardly had everybody taken their seats when Dr. Lee began his lecture.
Only later did she realize that she had been given the wrong change.
Only by chance had Carol discovered where the birds were nesting.
Only in this way was she able to complete the report.
At no time did they actually break the rules of the game.
Not a word had she written since the exam started.
Little do they know how lucky they are.
Only when the famine gets worse will the government start to act.
Inversion is used also with:
SO+adjective;
SUCH+BE
NEITHER or NOR (neither do I, nor do I, SO do I, so did Jane).
So successful was her business that she retired at 50.
Such is the popularity of the play that the theater is likely to be full every night.
For some time after the explosion, Jack couldn’t hear, neither could he see.
The council never wanted the new supermarket to be built, nor did the local residents.
