Inversion
after negative expressions and 'only...'
Jana
from The Czech Republic asks:
I have tried to learn English via the 大象传媒, which is great! I like
your Quiznet, but I need an explanation for the fifth item of Quiz
Three: 5. Choose
the correct answer:
Only
at night ..... the safety of their cave
bats leave
bats will leave
leave bats
do bats leave
Why is it not possible to use 'bats leave'? I would like to acquire
this grammatical rule.
Quite
often in English, certain expressions with a restrictive or negative
meaning are placed at the beginning of a sentence. The reason for
doing so is to emphasize the point that you want to make. It is striking,
original or surprising in some way. And whenever you make such a statement,
inversion is necessary. So, it has to be:
'Only
at night do bats leave their cave.'
'Only
after I had returned home did I realize that I had left my watch
in Emma's bathroom.'
Inversion
is also used after the not only ... but also construction:
'Not only did we visit Cuba's capital, Havana, (but) we also spent
three days exploring the Galapagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador.'
Inversion is also found in expressions containing the word 'no',
when placed at the beginning of the sentence:
'Under no circumstances are you (allowed) to walk home from
school alone.'
'In no way will I agree to sharing an office with
Ben.
The
same rule operates for 'seldom', 'hardly', 'scarcely', 'rarely', 'never',
'never before' and 'no sooner':
'Never before had I seen such realistic dinosaurs as there
were in the 大象传媒 television series.' (This is a reference to a
recent 大象传媒 series. If you want to know more have a look at the
web site - .)
'No sooner had I arrived
at the station than the train came in.'
'Rarely do we see such brightly-coloured
birds.'
'Seldom do we walk on such green grass.'
'Scarcely had we
finished lunch when the bell rang for afternoon classes.'
Remember,
you are registering surprise, or something similar, when you do this.
If it is inappropriate to be so emphatic, you would say:
'We had scarcely
finished lunch when the bell rang for afternoon classes.'
