Inverted sentence

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An inverted sentence is one in which the subject appears after the verb. This construction causes the subject to receive more emphasis.

An exception occurs when the verb is intransitive:

Down the street lived the man and his wife without anyone suspecting that they were really spies for a foreign power.

Because there's no object following the verb, the noun phrase after the verb "lived" can be decoded as subject without any problem.

[edit] Examples

Inversion after initial negatives:

  • Never will I do that again!
  • Rarely have I eaten better food.
  • Hardly ever does he come to class on time.
  • Not until a frog develops lungs does it leave the water and live on the land.
  • Not only was Mary Ann Shadd famous for helping escaped slaves, she was also the first African Canadian woman to establish a newspaper.
  • Hardly ever have there been so many choices for young people entering the work force as there are today.

Inversion after other structures:

  • So high is Mount Everest that climbers can take only a couple of steps per minute as they near the summit.
  • Off the coast of North Carolina lie the Barrier Islands, a popular summer resort area.
  • Only after the earthquake had taken place did the lack of safety measures become obvious.