inversion

INVERSION

Inversion is placing the verb or the auxiliary before the subject. There are 2 kinds of inversion:

a.       Auxiliary + subject

b.      Verb + subject

Inversion can be found in some sentences, they are:

1.      In question sentence, such as:

·         What do you study in Psychology?

·         Do you study English?

·         guys, how are you today?

·         Is English confusing?

·         Has she been here for an hour?

2.      In question taq, for example:

·         You don’t speak French, do you?

·         Ida is not in this room, is she?

3.      In conditional sentence, for example:

·         If she were a flower, I’d be her gardener  = were she a flower, I’d be her gardener

·         If the company had given all employees bonuses, they wouldn’t have gone on strike = had the company given all employees bonuses, they wouldn’t have gone on strike

4.      In exclamation, it is used to strengthen the meaning (very), for example:

·         Is she annoyed! = she is very annoyed

·         Am I happy to see you! = i’m very happy to see you

5.      After neither,so and for, for example:

·         She hasn’t gone to Australia and neither have I

·         I am hungry and so are you

·         Azizah didn’t do her homework and nor  did her sister

6.      After negative adverbs that are placed at the beginning of the sentences

Examples for the negative adverbs are seldom, never, rarely, hardly, not once, never, before, never once, never again, not only, no sooner, not until, only after, sincerely, and never while.

The function: to emphasize/ to strengthen the meaning

When the negative adverb is place at the beginning of the sentence, the structure of the sentence should be inverted. When we use not only, no sooner and only after, we should use clause. For example:

·         Sayyida has never been abroad before = never before has Sayyida been abroad

·         Guntur seldom phones his mother = seldom does Guntur phones his mother

·         My father could buy a house only after got a bank loan = only after got a bank loan, my father could buy a new house

·         He won’t be allowed to live independently until he gets his own money = not until he gets his own money, will he  be allowed to live independently

·         Never while, I let him hurt my heart like 3 days ago

·         We can eat fish only after you can cook it = only after you can cook it, can we eat fish

7.      In quoted (direct speech), for example:

·         “yes, I will”, answered Tio

·         “ when will you meet me?” asked Rahma