Inverted sentence
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An inverted sentence is a sentence in a normally subject-first language 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 is no object following the verb, the noun phrase after the verb "lived" can be decoded as subject without any problem. In English, such an inversion often introduces do-support.
Examples
Inversion after initial negatives:
- Never again will gvvgo that.
- Never a day hadissed her lessons.
- Rarely have I eatenod.
- 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 gft
Inversion after othehbbbures:
- Up jumpedret frog.
- So high is Mount Everest that climbers can take only a couple of steps per minute as jgfcthe 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.