Point 66 in ADVERBS/position is defined as: ‘HARDLY’ in front position followed by an inverted subject and verb, to give focus. Point 88 in PAST/perfect simple is defined as: invert the subject and affirmative auxiliary verb with ‘hardly … when’ to talk about something that happened immediately before something else, in formal contexts. There are […]
Category: inversion
direct speech (inverted)
Point 13 in REPORTED SPEECH (DIRECT SPEECH) is defined as: Report speech directly inverting the subject and verb in the reporting clause where the subject is a proper noun or noun phrase. A search in iWeb for: ” thought|said|asked * * 1 ” SAID HE , 4159 2 ” SAID HEAD COACH 3022 3 ” […]
(never before) past perfect inversion
Point 68 in PAST is defined as: past perfect simple, invert the subject and auxiliary verb after ‘never (before)’ to talk about a unique event, often in formal contexts. This point also overlaps the categories of Negatives and Adverbs. 1 NEVER BEFORE HAD I SEEN 57 The New York Review of Books “I […]
NO SOONER + past perfect – than
Point 56 in PAST perfect simple is defined as: invert the subject and auxiliary verb with ‘no sooner … than’ to talk about something that happened immediately before something else, often in formal contexts This is quite a rare structure. 1 NO SOONER HAD HE SAID 30 2 NO SOONER HAD I FINISHED 30 3 […]
Not a NOUN
Point 11 in the category of FOCUS is defined as: ‘Not a’ + noun with a passive verb or inverted auxiliary and subject for focus. This is very rare! _xx _at1 _n _vb _vvn 1 NOT A LOT IS KNOWN 193 WION Radical Chinese Christian cult active in Northeast India: Reports Not a lot […]
not only but also
Nine points on the English Grammar Profile cover the ‘not only’ ‘but also’ grammar structure. It is easy to see that using the structure is all over B2, but it is not easy to find exact matching for each and every point. In reality, these points will be quite rare in most students work. In […]
Adverbs 56 Negation 18
A rarer grammar structure to do with adverbs, negation and inversion.
Hardly had + inversion
If you want to express something that happened immediately before something else with a very rare expression… Hardly had * _vvn * when 1 HARDLY HAD HE SPOKEN, WHEN 4 Even when searching with 4 spaces to the right on iWeb we get less than 10 strings:
Inversion in clauses with conditions and formality
This is another post that points at overlapping points on the English Grammar Profile. Parts of two points are worded differently but basically locate the same structure for “should” starting a sentence. The only noticeable difference for these points in succession is that one is labelled as conditional and the other located in a “formal […]