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In linguistics, negative inversion is one of many types of subject–auxiliary inversion in English.A negation (e.g. not, no, never, nothing, etc.) or a word that implies negation (only, hardly, scarcely) or a phrase containing one of these words precedes the finite auxiliary verb necessitating that the subject and finite verb undergo inversion. [1]
Anadiplosis – repeating the last word of one clause or phrase to begin the next. Analogy – the use of a similar or parallel case or example to reason or argue a point. Anaphora – a succession of sentences beginning with the same word or group of words. Anastrophe – inversion of the natural word order.
Contrary to the subject-auxiliary inversion, the verb in cases of subject–verb inversion in English is not required to be an auxiliary verb; it is, rather, a full verb or a form of the copula be. If the sentence has an auxiliary verb, the subject is placed after the auxiliary and the main verb. For example: a. A unicorn will come into the ...
English developed from such a reordering language and still bears traces of this word order, for example in locative inversion ("In the garden sat a cat.") and some clauses beginning with negative expressions: "only" ("Only then do we find X."), "not only" ("Not only did he storm away but also slammed the door."), "under no circumstances ...
b. Under that tree sleeps only Larry. – Locative inversion c. *Under that tree sleeps he. – Locative inversion unlikely with a weak pronoun subject. The fronted expression that evokes locative inversion is an adjunct of location. Locative inversion in modern English is a vestige of the V2 order associated with earlier stages of the language.
Subject–auxiliary inversion is used after the anaphoric particle so, mainly in elliptical sentences. The same frequently occurs in elliptical clauses beginning with as. a. Fred fell asleep, and Jim did too. b. Fred fell asleep, and so did Jim. c. Fred fell asleep, as did Jim. Inversion also occurs following an expression beginning with so or ...
In rhetoric, chiasmus (/ k aɪ ˈ æ z m ə s / ky-AZ-məs) or, less commonly, chiasm (Latin term from Greek χίασμα chiásma, "crossing", from the Greek χιάζω, chiázō, "to shape like the letter Χ"), is a "reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses – but no repetition of words". [1]
The ambiguity does not exist in languages that employ echo answers. In the Welsh language, for example, the response "ydw" ("I am") has no such ambiguity when it is used to reply to a question. [12] Other languages also do not follow the custom, given by Grimes, with respect to the answers "yes" and "no".