Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Inversion
Inversion
Inversion
Modal + S + V
INVERSION
V S
A. Inversion : Modal + S + V
1. Direct question
e.g How much did you pay for it?
QW M S V
Do you like it?
M S V
Compare with the Indirect
question (Noun Clause). It takes a
statement word order. ( S V)
e.g.
He asked me how much I paid for
it.
Sub. Conj S V
I don’t know where he lives.
Sub. Conj S V
2. Negative I could hardly sleep last
adverbs beginning night.
of a sentence. Hardly could I sleep
Hardly last night.
Scarcely
Barely He has never seen such
Never a beautiful woman.
At no time
Never has he seen
Rarely/
such a beautiful woman.
seldom
e.g.
The robot comes here.
Here comes the robot.
V S
9. To put a stress, it is possible that a
passive verb is split and the main verb
begins the sentence.
e.g.
Several small kids were held as
hostages.
Held as hostages were several small
kids.