INVERSION
PURPOSE: EMPHASIS OR AGREEMENT
• For emphasis purpose
e.g. Never have I seen such a huge rat.
• For agreement
e.g. Tom likes icecream. I like icecream, too. So do I
e.g. Tom doesn’t like icecream. I don’t like icecream, either. Neither do I.
e.g. I thought (=did think), as did my colleagues, that the recession would soon be over.
FORM: CHANGING WORD ORDER
‘ADVERB/ ADVERBIAL + VERB + SUBJECT’
• Usually, we put the expression at the beginning of the sentence to emphasise what we’re
saying. It
makes our sentence sound surprising or striking or unusual. It also sounds quite formal. If
you don’t
want to give this impression, you can put the negative expression later in the sentence in the
normal
way:
• Seldom have I seen such beautiful work.
(‘Seldom’ is at the beginning, so we use inversion. This sentence emphasizes what beautiful
work it is.)
• I have seldom seen such beautiful work. (‘Seldom’ is in the normal place, so we don’t use
[Link] ONES
(TONE: EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCES)
D
• Rarely will you hear such beautiful C
Time • Only later did she really think about the
-
T music. - situation.
• Nowhere have I ever had such bad
• Only then did I understand why the
Time tragedy had happened.
service.
• Little did he know!
• Not only does he love chocolate and
sweets but he also smokes. • Only in this way could John earn enough
are
① money to survive.
• No sooner had we arrived home than the
①
police rang the doorbell.
=
&• In no way do I agree with what you’re
saying. S do with what
• Scarcely/ Hardly had I got off the bus
under
n agree
umumstances you shouldsaying any way
in
,
are
when it crashed into the back of a car. • On no account you do anything
=
- without asking me first.
2. IF-CONDITIONALS: EMPHASISING
IMPOSSIBILITY & REGRET
• We can use inversion instead of ‘if’ in conditionals with ‘had’ ‘were’ and ‘should’. This is
quite formal:
• Formal conditional: If I had been there, this problem wouldn’t have happened.
• Conditional with inversion: Had I been there, this problem wouldn’t have happened.
[Link] TIME REFERENCE:
• In the following expressions, the inversion comes in the second part of the sentence:
• Not until I saw John with my own eyes did I really believe he was safe.
• Not since Lucy left college had she had such a wonderful time.
• Only after I’d seen her flat did I understand why she wanted to live there.
• Only when we’d all arrived home did I feel calm.
• Only by working extremely hard could we afford to eat.
[Link] EXPRESSION OF PLACE (USED
IN STORIES)
• We can use inversion if we put an adverbial expression of place at the beginning on the
sentence.
• This is also quite formal or literary:
e.g. On the table was all the money we had lost. (Normal sentence: All the money we had
lost was on the table.)
e.g. Round the corner came the knights. (Normal sentence: The knights came round the
corner.)
5. ‘SO + ADJECTIVE … THAT’ & ‘SUCH…THAT’
• We can use inversion after ‘so + adjective … that’:
e.g. So beautiful was the girl that nobody could talk of anything else.
(Normal sentence: The girl was so beautiful that nobody could talk of anything else.)
e.g. So delicious was the food that we ate every last bite.
(Normal sentence: The food was so delicious that we ate every last bite.)
e.g. Such was the force of the storm that trees were uprooted.
(No normal sentence)
REMINDERS
• Inversions are to be used in formal, literary situations.
• You should not use inversion patterns more than 2 times in a writing task.