Строй современного английского языка
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| Only here and there among the neo-gothic buildings was there a lighted window, the sound of a voice, a shout or, in the distance, the noise of lonely footsteps on a stone path. (BUECHNER) Thus it appears that we have here normal order for this type of sentence, reinforced by the influence of only, which would have caused the order "predicate + subject" in any case.
Word order is influenced by an initial only even if the rest of the main clause is separated from it by a considerable amount of intervening words, as in the following sentence: Only when, after a few minutes, he (the monkey) ceased spinning and simply crouched in the pale light, bouncing softly up and down, his fingers digging into the carpet, his tail curled out stiff, did he start to speak to them. (BUECHNER) The particle only here serves to single out the adverbial clause of time beginning with the words when, after a few The Secondary Parts 241 m inutes, and, with the dependent participle constructions, running down to the words curled out stiff. In the sentence we also find the characteristic feature of many absolute constructions (compare p. 260): the subject of the absolute construction is a noun denoting a part of the body of the being whose name is the subject of the sentence (in this particular case it is not the actual name of the being but the pronoun he replacing it). A much rarer type of inversion is found in the following sentence: Many were the inquiries she was eager to make of Miss Tilney: but so active were her thoughts, that when these inquiries were answered, she was hardly more assured than before of Northunger Abbey having been a richly endowed convent at the time of the Reformation... (J. AUSTEN) The position of the predicative in each of the two first clauses is distinctly emphatic, and the inversion is here a sign of an emotional colouring, which, in a larger context, appears to be ironic. Among interrogative sentences a well-known special type are sentences having an interrogative pronoun either as subject or as attribute to the subject; we might say, in a generalising way, having an interrogative pronoun within the subject group, as in the following examples: What is your business with me this morning? (SHAW) Who in this house would dare be seen speaking to you ever again? (Idem) Oh, who would be likely to see us anyhow at tins time of night? (DREISER) In the way of word order, then, such sentences correspond to declarative sentences. Inversion, that is, the order "predicate + subject", in such sentences appears to be entirely out of the question. Download 1.77 Mb. Share with your friends:
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