Inverted sentence
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An inverted sentence is a sentence in which the predicate (verb) comes before the subject (noun).
- 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.
Examples[edit]
Inversion after initial negatives: I will never 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, but 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.
