Only through dire circumstance had they discovered that he was also the dragon Kotrialstrasz. - In Warcraft: War of the Ancients #1
So why is the word "had" put in that position in the sentence or can it be put after "they"?
Thank you.
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Sign up to join this communityOnly through dire circumstance had they discovered that he was also the dragon Kotrialstrasz. - In Warcraft: War of the Ancients #1
So why is the word "had" put in that position in the sentence or can it be put after "they"?
Thank you.
Only through dire circumstance had they discovered that he was also the dragon Kotrialstrasz.
The meaning of the sentence:
They managed to discover that he was also the dragon Kotrialstrasz. But they managed to do that only through dire circumstance.
Sentence 1 has the standard word order (SAVO). They is Subject, had is an Auxiliary, discovered is a Verb, and dragon is an Object.
In sentence 2 we have Subject-Auxiliary inversion, because it's a question.
Sentence 3 is not a question, but it begins with a phrase of "negative meaning": "Only through dire circumstances". This also allows us to invert the word order.
If instead of this phrase we would use a phrase with no negative meaning, it would be better to retain the standard word order (SVO):
On Monday morning they had discovered a dragon. (Subject - Auxiliary - Verb - Object)
"On Monday morning" is an adverbial phrase with a non-negative meaning, so it would look weird with inversion:
On Monday morning had they discovered a dragon. (WRONG!)
If we add "Only", we will make the meaning of the phrase negative, and we'll have to invert the auxiliary verb and the subject:
Only on Monday morning had they discovered a dragon. (OKAY)
But if we move this "negative phrase" from its fronted position, we'll switch back to the standard declarative sentence word order:
They had discovered a dragon only on Monday morning.
References:
Some other examples (in italics) of fronted negatives licensing the inversion (in bold):
Least of all is it possible to discuss this issue at this late hour.
At no time must you allow this candle to burn out.
In this way alone could he achieve success.
Not a single question did he answer during the interrogation.