The Communicative Grammar of English Workbook - Edward Woods, Rudy Coppieters 2002

17.4. Organising information - Inversion
Unit seventeen. Focusing

Sections 415-417; 584-585; 590-594; 681-684

There are two types of inversion:

(i) Subject-verb inversion

(ii) Subject-operator inversion

Subject-verb inversion is normally limited as follows:

• The verb phrase consists of a single verb word in the past or present tense

• The verb is an intransitive verb of position

• The topic element is an adverbial of place or direction

Subject-operator inversion occurs when a negative element is fronted for emphasis.

Task one **

Give end-focus or end-weight to the parts of the sentences underlined below.

1. John’s there by the fence.

2. The house for sale is over there.

3. Look, the person you want is there.

4. Rick is on the left; Nick is on the right.

5. Janet and Paul came down the road laughing and shouting.

6. The kite flew up into the sky.

7. John Nehemiah lies here - looking up at his friends.

8. The car of his dreams stood outside the house.

9. A city stood on the hill, proud surveyor of the valley below.

10. An enormous tree crashed down as the storm raged.

Task two **

Rewrite the sentences below to give greater emphasis to the negative element.

1. The government would only agree to bail out the company if the managing director quit.

2. England has never played better than with its new manager.

3. Your proposal doesn’t touch on the real problem in any way.

4. The Prime Minister didn’t make even the smallest concession to the opposition.

5. Their son not only failed his exam; he also refused the chance to repeat it.

6. They were not left a penny in their mother’s will. All the money went to charity.

She had hardly had time to take in the new rules for welfare payments when she was put in charge ^7. of the office.

8. The head of department could do little to stop the erosion of confidence in any future developments.

9. He gave little away about his own future plans.

10. I’ve rarely seen such a poor display of sportsmanship.

Task three ***

Rewrite the passage using an appropriate form of inversion wherever possible, and where necessary a change of vocabulary, to achieve greater emphasis. The first one has been done for you. There are ten others.

Eccles is not far from Manchester. It is not only famous for its special cake; it also has the world’s only swinging aqueduct, carrying water from the Manchester Ship Canal. Now the people of Eccles are afraid that no-one will come to experience these jewels. Why?

A town called Eccles is nowhere on the new ordnance survey map.

“We’re very sorry about this. We rarely make such mistakes,” confessed a spokesman for the ordnance survey team.

“They understand little about how we feel,” said a town councillor. “I had hardly sat down at my desk this morning before the phone started ringing with complaints. I shall only be satisfied when we are back on the map.”

Unfortunately, that can’t happen in any way until the next edition of the map.

Another mistake is the map shows Ladywell and Salford Royal Hospitals. These hospitals no longer exist.

Residents of Eccles have seldom felt so confused and angry. “There’s no way strangers to the region can find us now,” sighed one resident.

Not far from Manchester is Eccles.