If I were a rich man...
can be written as
Were I a rich man...
Is this rewriting also valid after 'as'?
He behaved as if he were a rich man...
He behaved as were he a rich man...
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1"If I were a rich man" can be replaced with "Were I a rich man" ... you left out the indefinite article, and later on you left out the pronoun "he": the second-to-last example should be "He behaved as if he were a rich man..." I've edited to fix these since they don't seem to be related to your main question.– sumelicCommented Jun 1, 2017 at 18:42
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1The short answer is "no, you can't write it that way", but I don't really have a good explanation for why not.– stangdonCommented Jun 1, 2017 at 23:03
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1 Answer
Your two sentences have completely different feelings about them tough they have the same meaning
If I were a rich man...
Were I a rich man...
using "if" emphasizes the hypothetical-ness of asking the question, whereas the second may convey more pondering
He behaved as if he were a rich man...
is correct
He behaved as were he a rich man...
is incorrect, but could be corrected to
He behaved as though he was a rich man...
As a side note: "Were I a rich man" would not fit into the song as well as
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Say, Peter, is "He behaved as though a rich man..." also correct? Commented Dec 27, 2017 at 18:24
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"He behave as though he was a rich man" would be better or "He behaved as if he was a rich man", but your sentence would still probably be understood.– PeterCommented Dec 27, 2017 at 23:56