Bernard M 14 Posted May 11, 2019 Report Share Posted May 11, 2019 Hello, I have two questions about inversions in English: 1- is the inversion mandatory in the cases indicated or just a style formula? 2 - Is the list of cases cited exhaustive or are there other expressions of this type (other negative adverbial expressions or other frequency adverbs ...)? Thank you for your help. Have a nice day. Quote Link to post
Head Tutor Minoo 344 Posted May 11, 2019 Head Tutor Report Share Posted May 11, 2019 Hello Bernard, 1. If you start your sentence with the negative expression in order to emphasise it, inversion is mandatory. Saying' Never I had heard this.' is wrong. You must say: 'Never had I heard this.' However, you always have the choice of moving the negative expression to the middle of the sentence as long as you don't mind removing the emphasis. 2. I cannot claim my list to be exhaustive, but I have made sure that the most common expressions are listed. Quote Link to post
Bernard M 14 Posted May 11, 2019 Author Report Share Posted May 11, 2019 Thank you very much, Minoo. Your answer is very clear to me. Minoo 1 Quote Link to post
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.