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Do you know how to use inversion after negative adverbials like Not only, Barely and Only? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.
- Seldom / Rarely / Hardly Ever / Never / Not Once
- Never (Again) / No Longer
- No Way / on No Account / Under No Circumstances
- Only (Then) / Never Before
- Not only … But Also
- Little Did He Know …
Some things just don’t happen often, right? I mean, when was the last time you saw someone wearing a turban, but not as a costume? It just doesn’t happen much! Except in Vienna, for some reason. Seriously, I was impressed by how fashionable turbans are there. Anyway, back to the adverbials. When we want to talk about how unusual something is, we ca...
Sometimes, we want to say, “Enough is enough! I’m never doing this again!” Or maybe we’re sad that something has finished, and we want to say, “I’m sad that this will no longer happen.” That’s when these adverbials will come in handy. Sometimes we use these adverbials to express regret: “Never againwill I look into his deep, brown eyes.” “No longer...
Sometimes we just want to say “No!” There are some things that just shouldn’t — no, CAN’T — happen. And when we feel very strongly about it, we can emphasise how strongly we feel with these adverbials. In other words, these adverbials simply mean “DEFINITELY NOT!”
We often use negative adverbials to highlight when a change happens. Perhaps we’re talking about a change from something not happening to something happening. Or maybe it’s the opposite — something happens up to a certain point, then it stops. Whichever way round, we can emphasise that point in time — the point of change — using negative adverbials...
Sure, there’s only one adverbial in this category, but it’s so common that you totally need to know it. And as you can see, it’s a bit different. Not only do we add a clause after the adverbial … … but we also use the phrase “but also” with it. We use this adverbial to express surprise or enthusiasm. It’s like we’re saying, “You can do this, AND yo...
Finally, another category with one adverbial in it. This is a very common phrase, so worth learning. Think of it as a fixed phrase. Sometimes we really enjoy knowing things that other people don’t know. This is especially exciting when watching films or TV series. In the horror film when the couple is walking into the dark building in the middle of...
What is an inversion with a negative adverbial? In formal English, we can use a negative or restrictive adverb at the beginning of a sentence to make it more emphatic or dramatic. When we do this, the adverb is then followed by an inversion: auxiliary verb + subject (+ verb). See the example below:
When do we use inversion? Of course, we use inversion in questions. You can read more about this here. But we also sometimes use inversion in other cases, when we are not making a question. 1: When we use a negative adverb or adverb phrase at the beginning of the sentence.
To form a sentence with inversion after negative adverbials, you should follow this pattern: Start with the negative adverbial. Begin your sentence with the negative adverbial phrase. Follow with the auxiliary verb. If the sentence has an auxiliary verb (e.g., have, be, will, do), it comes next.
Some adverbs (e.g. hardly, little, never, only, scarcely and seldom) have a negative meaning. When we use these at the beginning of the clause, we invert the subject and verb: Hardly had we left the hotel when it started to pour with rain.
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To invert a sentence move the adverbial to the beginning of the sentence and invert the subject and auxiliary verb: ‘ I had never met someone so interesting.’ becomes ‘Never had I met...
