There will be readers of these pages who are not first-language speakers of English, and it is to these that I address occasional language “tips.” Although I guess they wouldn’t harm native speakers either.

More advanced students of English will have come up against the problem of inversions, that is cases where the subject of a sentence changes place with a verb or auxiliary verb. Some of these constructions can be a little tricky, and it might be interesting to have a look at one or two examples. I shall follow the linguistic convention of prefacing the ungrammatical sentences below with an asterisk (*)

1a. * The minister claimed that on each occasion had help been forthcoming from the government. 

As a single, complete sentence, this does not work. There seems to be a confusion here between inversions and conditional forms. It is true that sentences beginning with the words “On no occasion …” do usually require an inversion of the subject and the verb or its auxiliary, but here we have an affirmative form, using the word “each” rather than “no.” 

It is, of course, quite correct to say “On no occasion had help been forthcoming” if we end the sentence there. However, if we view the sentence as incomplete, with a comma after the word occasion, then the above example would be fine. We might imagine the sentence continuing: 

1b. The minister claimed that on each occasion, had help been forthcoming from the government, it could have been possible to avoid any substantial damage to property. 

This usage is, of course, nothing more than an elegant conditional — compare the more prosaic ‘if help had been forthcoming’.

2. * The police admitted that seldom had they had to deal with such a complicated matter. 

Here we have another example of a word, ‘seldom’, that when used at the beginning of a sentence usually requires an inversion. For example, we can say “Seldom does the temperature fall below zero in Mandanga City.” This inversion is an optional variant, however, very formal, and it is equally possible (and probably more sensible) to say ‘The temperature seldom falls . . .’, which is formally much more neutral. In sentence two above the word “seldom” does not occur at the beginning of the sentence, nor in the example above, and therefore the correct, non-inverted, form is “The police admitted that they had seldom had to . . .”

3. The expression ‘by no means’ is interesting insofar as it may or may not require an inversion, depending on which position it occurs in a sentence.  Compare the two sentences 

She is by no means happy with her present job

By no means is she happy with her present job.  

Here, the second form requires the inversion, a change of position between the subject and the verb, because “by no means” occurs at the beginning of the sentence.  However, when it occurs after the verb (in this case “is”), the inversion is not necessary.  Notice also that if we put the verb in the negative, we have to change the word “no” to “any.” We would in this case say “She isn’t happy with her present job by any means.” “Any” is obligatory when the verb is in the negative.

4. A similar thing occurs with the word “only.”  Look at the sentences

On a few occasions I have been able to get through to the bank in less than 10 attempts.  

On only a few occasions have I been able to get through to the bank in less than ten attempts.  

In the first, there is no inversion involved.  Look what happens, however, when we add the word ‘only’.  This obliges us to use a construction with an inverted form. Just as the position of the expression ‘by no means’ in the earlier example conditioned whether to use an inversion or not, in this case the presence or absence of the word ‘only ‘is equally relevant.

5:  * James goes to School and so Peter does.

     * James doesn’t like spinach and neither Peter does.

The pro-form (or operator) “does” is used here to avoid needless repetition. The pro-form carries person and tense and provides a trace of the full verb or verb phrase. In my experience, some students find inversions involving “so” and “neither” confusing. The simple rule in English is that when one of these (and the word “nor” as well) comes first in the clause, the grammatical subject must follow the operator. The correct sentences should read “James goes to School and so does Peter” and “James doesn’t like spinach and neither does Peter.”

6. Susan has more charm and poise than [does] anyone else in the whole of the lakeside community. 

This sentence is correct, although may appear strange to some advanced learners. The use of does is however optional and occurs in comparative constructions like this one when the second element being compared is relatively long.

To finish today, I quote from my notes on a posting on an old TESL-L list: a taxonomy of inversions into nine different categories (see box). I don’t seem to have made a note of the exact source, but it is attributed to W. S. Fowler, with whom I worked at the British Council School in Barcelona many years ago. It seems a fitting way to finish today, and teachers of more advanced students may find it productive to get their students to make up examples analogous to these.