Starting a sentence with “May have contributed to this result”

Question

After reporting a result in a sentence, is it grammatically correct to start a subsequent sentence with “May have contributed to this result”?

Bellow I provide two examples, in the first “May have contributed to this result” is at the beginning of the subsequent sentence, and in second is at the end.

1. Significant associations were found only in the north region. May have contributed to this result the fact that the population in the north region was more inclined to participate in the study.
2. Significant associations were found only in the north region. The fact that the population in the north region was more inclined to participate in the study may have contributed to this result.

It seemed to me that the result sentence is better linked to the subsequent explanatory sentence in the first example, but I'm not sure.

Answer 1

You should not start a sentence with "May have ..."

The phrase "may have contributed" is a verb phrase, and "may" is a modal verb. An indicative sentence (not a question or a command) needs a subject before the the verb. This might be a "dummy subject" for example

What may have contributed ... is the fact that ..."

The notion of "end weighting" (in a long sentence, the last part will be remembered best, and so carry most weight) could influence which sentence you would choose.