Stylistic (Emphatic) Inversion

(From the Latin ‘inversio’ - переворачивание)

The fixed (predominating) S-P-O (Subject-Predicate-Object) word-order makes any change in the structure of the sentence conspicuous and inevitably results in a modification of the intonation design. The most conspicuous places in the sentence are considered to be the first and the last: the first because the full force of the stress can be felt at the beginning of the utterance, and the last because there is a pause after it.

e.g. in the sentences from “David Copperfield” by Dickens

“Talent Mr. Micawber [mi’k :b ] has; capital Mr. Micawber has not”

the first and the last position being prominent, in the inverted word-order not only the object ‘talent’ and ‘capital’ become conspicuous, but also the predicates ‘has’ and ‘has not’.

Here we can speak of stylistic inversion. Unlike grammatical inversion, stylistic inversion does not change the structural meaning of the sentence (Cf.: grammatical inversion changes the communicative type of the sentence: e.g. an affirmative sentence becomes interrogative).

Stylistic inversion aims at attaching logical stress and/ or additional emotional colouring to the meaning of the utterance. Therefore a specific intonation pattern is an inevitable satellite of inversion.

The following patterns of stylistic inversion are most frequently in both English prose and poetry:

1) The object is placed at the beginning of the sentence (see: example above);

2) The predicate is placed before the subject:

e.g. A good generous prayer it was.(Mark Twain);

3) The predicative precedes the link-verb and both are placed before the subject:

e.g. “Rude am I in my speech.” (Sh.);

e.g. “Inexpressible was the astonishment of the little party when they returned to find that Mr. Pickwick had disappeared” (Dickens)

4) The attribute is placed after the word it modifies (postpositive attribute):

e.g. “With fingers weary and worn “ (Thomas Hood)

e.g. “Once upon a midnight dreary …” (Edgar Poe);

5) The adverbial modifier is placed at the beginning of the sentence:

e.g. “Eagerly I wished the morrow” (E.A.Poe)

e.g. “A tone of most extraordinary compassion she said it in” (Dickens)

e.g. “I can’t bear to see him. Over by St. Paul he stands and there is no money in it.” (Galsworthy);

6) Both the modifier and the predicate stand before the subject:

e.g. “In went Mr. Pickwick” (Dickens)

e.g. “Down dropped the breeze” (Coleridge)

e.g. “Down came the storm” (Longfellow).

These 6 models comprise the most common and recognized models of inversion. However, in modern English and American poetry there is a tendency to experiment with the word-order to such an extent that it makes the message difficult to understand. In this case there may be an unlimited number of rearrangements of sentence members.

Inversion as a SD is always sense-motivated. There is a tendency to account for inversion in poetry by considerations of rhythm. But really talented poets will never sacrifice sense for form, i.e. content for rhythm.

Inversion is one of the forms known as emphatic constructions. It should not be regarded as a violation of the regular word-order in the sentence, but as an EM of the language, having typical structural models.