What's an inversion?

An inversion happens when we reverse (invert) the normal word order of a structure,
most commonly the subject-verb word order. For example, a statement has the subject
(s) before the verb (v), but to make question word order, we invert the subject and the
verb, with an auxiliary (aux) or modal verb (m) before the subject (s):

Example 1: I have never seen such a beautiful rose.

Example 2: Never have I seen such a beautiful rose.

In example 2 an inversion is used to emphasise the fact that in your whole lifetime you
have not seen such a beautiful rose.

Where do I use them?

It is sometimes difficult to remember where an inversion can be used.

Here are some guidelines and examples to help you.

1. To make questions.

Normal sentence: You are tired. (The subject is ‘you’. It’s before the verb ‘are’.)

Question form: Are you tired? (The verb ‘are’ is before the subject ‘you’. They have
changed places. This is called ‘inversion’)

In most English verb tenses, when we want to use inversion, we just move the verb to
before the subject. If there’s more than one verb, because a verb tense has auxiliary
verbs for example, we move the first verb.

There are two verb tenses where we just change the places of the verb and subject:

Present simple with ‘be’: am I / are you / is he

Past simple with ‘be’: were you / was she

With other verb tenses, we change the place of the subject and the auxiliary verb (the
first auxiliary verb if there is more than one).

We don’t move the other parts of the verb:

- Past continuous: was he going / were they going

- Present perfect: have we gone / has she gone

- Present perfect continuous: has she been going / have they been going 

- Past perfect: had you gone

- Past perfect continuous: had he been going

- Future simple: will they go

- Future continuous: will you be going

- Future perfect: will they have gone

- Future perfect continuous: will she have been going

- Modal verbs: should I go / would you go

There are two tenses where we need to add do / does / did to make the question form.
This is usually still called inversion.

- Present simple with any verb except ‘be’ (add ‘do’ or ‘does’): do you go / does he go

- Past simple with any verb except ‘be’ (add ‘did’): did we go / did they go

2. When we use a negative adverb or adverb phrase at the beginning of the sentence.

Usually, we put the expression at the beginning of the sentence to emphasise what we’re
saying. It makes our sentence sound surprising, striking or unusual. It also sounds quite
formal. If you don’t want to give this impression, you can put the negative expression
later in the sentence in the normal way:

Seldom have I seen such beautiful work. (‘Seldom’ is at the beginning, so we use
inversion. This sentence emphasizes what beautiful work it is.)

I have seldom seen such beautiful work.

(‘Seldom’ is in the normal place, so we don’t use inversion. This is a normal sentence
with no special emphasis.)

We only use inversion when the adverb modifies the whole phrase and not when it
modifies the noun: Hardly anyone passed the exam. (No inversion.)
Here are some negative adverbs and adverb phrases that we often use with inversion:

Hardly - Hardly had I got into bed when the telephone rang.

Never - Never had she seen such a beautiful sight before.

Seldom - Seldom do we see such an amazing display of dance.

Rarely - Rarely will you hear such beautiful music.

Only then - Only then did I understand why the tragedy had happened.

Not only - Not only does he love chocolate and sweets but he also smokes.

No sooner - No sooner had we arrived home than the police rang the doorbell.

Scarcely - Scarcely had I got off the bus when it crashed into the back of a car.

Only later - Only later did she really think about the situation.

Nowhere - Nowhere have I ever had such bad service.

Little - Little did he know!

Only in this way - Only in this way could John earn enough money to survive.

In no way - In no way do I agree with what you’re saying.

On no account - On no account should you do anything without asking me.

With the following expressions, the inversion comes in the second part of the sentence:

Not until - Not until I saw John with my own eyes did I really believe he was safe.

Not since - Not since Lucy left college had she had such a wonderful time.

Only after - Only after I’d seen her flat did I understand why she wanted to live there.

Only when - Only when we’d all arrived home did I feel calm.

Only by - Only by working extremely hard could we afford to eat.

3. We can use inversion instead of ‘if’ in conditionals with ‘had’ ‘were’ and ‘should’.
This is quite formal.
Normal conditional: If I had been there, this problem wouldn’t have happened.

Conditional with inversion: Had I been there, this problem wouldn’t have happened.

Normal conditional: If we had arrived sooner, we could have prevented this tragedy!

Conditional with inversion: Had we arrived sooner, we could have prevented this
tragedy!

4. We can use inversion if we put an adverbial expression of place at the beginning on

On the table was all the money we had lost. (Normal sentence: All the money we had
lost was on the table.)

Round the corner came the knights. (Normal sentence: The knights came round the
corner.)

5. We can use inversion after ‘so + adjective … that’:

So beautiful was the girl that nobody could talk of anything else. (Normal sentence: the
girl was so beautiful that nobody could talk of anything else.)

So delicious was the food that we ate every last bite. (Normal sentence: the food was so
delicious that we ate every last bite.)