Grammer question. Need help
Only recently has science begun to probe the cultural and biological roots of wunderkinder. (Inversion)

My question is that can we form any statements into inversion's form like if we have:Only recently science has begun to probe the cultural and biological roots of wunderkinder. Can we make it to inversion ? or can we do it if only we have a negative phrase like: Not for any amount of money will I eat kidneys .

Does it have any rule? or we can form any statements just by putting the auxiliary at first like a question and make it inversion!

Question

Grammer question. Need help
Only recently has science begun to probe the cultural and biological roots of wunderkinder. (Inversion)

My question is that can we form any statements into inversion's form like if we have:Only recently science has begun to probe the cultural and biological roots of wunderkinder.  Can we make it to inversion ? or can we do it if only we have a negative phrase like: Not for any amount of money will I eat kidneys .

Does it have any rule? or we can form any statements just by putting the auxiliary at first like a question and make it inversion!

Answer

Hi Maryam! We use inversion to add emphasis to a negative statement and you're only going to see this kind of sentence in very formal writing or in literature (novels etc.). The example you give would be "For no amount of money would I eat kidneys" as the inversion of "I wouldn't eat kidneys for any amount of money". You could also say "Under no circumstances would I eat kidneys" as the inversion of "I wouldn't eat kidneys under any circumstances". We don't invert positive sentences.

As you can see, there are certain sentences and phrases that lend themselves better to inversion than others. Some of the common ones are; On no account, at no time, not once, seldom, nowhere, only recently, no sooner...than.

Answer

Sorry - many native speakers don't know much grammar. I don't know what auxiliaries are, or what inversion in a grammatical context mean. I'd be happy to tell you if your examples are correct or not, but I don't know what the rules are...

Answers · 4

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