When is inversion between the subject and the object or the subject and the complement possible?

Question

When is inversion between the subject and the object or the subject and the complement possible?

For instance:

I stood at the window watching the kids play. <---> At the window watching the kids play stood I.

We were playing football <---> football were playing we.

The notebook stood besides the bed <---> Besides the bed stood the notebook.

I think you understand what I mean already. Are all of these sentences correct? Are there exceptions to that rule? Also, what context are these structures used in? It looks a bit like a literary style to me.

Answer 1

The particular inversion that is possible is the locative inversion. This makes the third example possible, the first example marginally possible, and the second is not correct.

In the locative inversion, a prepositional phrase indicating location is fronted, and the subject inverts with the verb:

John stood beside the bed -> Beside the bed stood John.

However, this is not generally done with pronoun subjects.

Here the prepositional phrase is "beside the bed" the subject is "John" and the verb is "stood".

Similarly there is a locative phrase "at the window", so you might invert

At the window stood I, watching the kids play.

You might also move the "watching...play" to the front too. However it is somewhat odd, as the subject is a pronoun

But there is no locative phrase in the second example.

Now, none of these are subect-object inversions... They are all Subject-verb inversions. Subject-object inversions are not part of English, however "yoda speak" (in which the object is fronted) is possible.

Your second example is an inversion of subject and object, and it is ungrammatical.

Answer 2

I would say it's almost always possible, but this is a poetic style that sounds artificial and dramatic, and doesn't really work except in an appropriate context.

For example, suppose I show up to meet my friends 10 minutes after the appointed time, and instead of saying, "I am late", I exclaim

Late am I!

It might sound funny or it might just sound weird, depending on my character. In the same way, you should avoid using most inversion until you understand its use.

All three of your examples are (more or less) correctly inverted, although as Jason Bassford points out the last one should be

Beside the bed stood the notebook.

It's unusual for something like a notebook to stand, though unless it's very large. It would be more common to say the notebook lay beside the bed ... but perhaps there's a reason it's standing up.

Answer 3

The sentences you proposed are OK, but unusual. In other words,

Perfect they are, if Yoda you are!