Learning English

Inversion

We use adverbial inversion for drama, emphasis or formality.

Form: Move the adverb / adverbial phrase to the beginning of the sentence, and switch the subject and auxiliary:

Normal word order: I had never seen such a wonder.

Using inversion: Never had I seen such a wonder.

When we want to use inversion with sentences that have no auxiliary, we need to add it after the adverb and before the subject in the inverted sentence.

Normal word order: I rarely smoke. (no auxiliary)

Using inversion: Rarely do I smoke. (added do after adverb)