Monday, November 23, 2015

Subject predicate inversion due to negation

I was reading about subject predicate inversion




inverted word-order... is also used in clauses introduced by a
negative or restrictive clause element. In the following example, the
initial element Not only is negative and is followed by inverted word
order: could congress declare...



(12) Not only could (v) Congress (S) declare (V) war but the states

were forbidden to engage in it without the consent of Congress.




I am struggling to intuitively apply this.



Can someone explain the rule? E.g. the former sounds wrong, but perhaps the latter inversion does less damage. Maybe not.



Is the sentence Not all my cigs lit a candidate for inversion in the first place? And why or why not?





  • Not all my cigs lit -> Not all my lit cigs

  • Not all my cigs lit burning straight -> Not all my lit cigs burning straight



Specifically could the phrase in bold be such an inversion (please ignore whether it is):




  • Not all your light tongues talking aloud / could be profound

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