Questions tagged [subject-auxiliary-inversion]
For questions about sentences where an auxiliary verb has been moved to a spot before the subject. Also called subject-operator inversion.
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Use "does" in front of another verb in a question?
What time does sound good to you?
What time sounds good to you?
Is there a difference?
- 1,523
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'Only by defending against threats WILL YOU be able to carry out your strategies' - Position of "will"
I saw this sentence and thought shouldn't "will" be placed after "You" instead of before it?
Only by defending against your opponent's threats will you be able to successfully carry out your own ...
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The order of words in a clause: "tell me who is the real man" vs. "tell me who the real man is" [duplicate]
"Tell me who she is."
"Tell me who your boyfriend is."
We usually reverse the order, so it becomes like that.
But I wonder whether "tell me who is the real man" also works because "tell me who ...
- 1,967
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Please tell me how much {I should / should I} pay for this
I am confused about the correct order of the modal verb (should) and the pronoun (I) in the example below. Generally, I feel that the sentence is a request, which implies it is a question. Must the ...
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In “Does he have it?”, why doesn't ‘have’ agree with ‘he’?
We say "He/She has it", ie "he" or "she" which are singular is followed by "has". Similarly "they" or "you" which are plural, are followed ...
- 353
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"With no jobs Bobby would be happy." and "With no jobs would Bobby be happy." What's your interpretation of these?
For this couple of days, I'm reading a book titled English sentences Japanese people always get wrong (Written by Toshiya Echizen), and have some questions regarding the interpretation of some example ...
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About inversion and exclamations
While reading Practical English Usage by Michael Swan, I found (p. 270, inversion section) that:
In spoken American English, exclamations often have the same form as ordinary
(non-negative) questions ...
- 240
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Verb before noun
Constants and variables of a certain type can't be declared again with the same name, nor can they be altered to store different types.
After 'nor' why 'can' is used first instead of 'they'?
I feel ...
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Subject inversion in the correlative comparative construction
Found this line in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (ch.13 #4.6)
The more conditions I impose, the less likely is he to agree.
The chapter doesn't say why the inversion was used here. ...
2
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1
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"Are" at the End of a Statement (a statement that is not an indirect question)
Why is it okay to use "are" at the end of a statement?
I found a page here that talks about verbs at the end of indirect questions, but I am specifically looking for an answer about why "are" can be ...
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The role of do in a declarative sentence
What is the role of "do" in the following sentence?
Only in the jungle do you find lizards that can soar like dragons.
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Is "Outside the house were two women talking" a grammatical/good sentence? partial inversion vs full inversion
Oxford Guide to English Grammar; John Eastwood; Oxford University Press 1994-09
Page 56-57
3 Inversion after an adverbial
a In this sentence the pattern is subject + verb + adverbial of place....
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Can I ask a question without inversion, as in 'you are fine?'?
Is a verb in questions in English always in front of subject? For example, can I say 'You are fine?', or should I always say 'Are you fine?'.
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