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INVERSIONS (EXAMPLES (1: When we use a negative adverb or adverb phrase at…
INVERSIONS
EXAMPLES
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('Seldom' is at the beginning, so we use inversion. This sentence emphasizes what beautiful work it is.)
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('Seldom' is in the normal place, so we don't use inversion. This is a normal sentence with no special emphasis.)
We can use inversion instead of 'if' in conditionals with 'had' 'were' and 'should'. This is quite formal:
Normal 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.
Normal conditional: If we had arrived sooner, we could have prevented this tragedy!
Conditional with inversion: Had we arrived sooner, we could have prevented this tragedy!
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Not only do I enjoy classical music, but I also have regular music lessons.
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Inversion happens when we reverse (invert) the normal word order of a structure, most commonly the subject-verb word order.
When does inversion happen?
The most common type of inversion is question word order (see above). Inversion also happens in other situations.
In most English verb tenses, when we want to use inversion, we just move the verb to before the subject. If there's more than one verb, because a verb tense has auxiliary verbs for example, we move the first verb.
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: