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Grammarian-bot Posted 19 years ago
Grammar

Inverse

0 00Among the emotions on display in the negotiating room 01b00was 02b00anger for repeatedly raising the issue and preventing the raw wounds from earlier battles from ever beginning to heal00 .02br
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00I know that for 01i00was02i00 the subject is anger and not emothions and it's something called 01i00inverse verb02i00. But how do we know which sentence is inverse and which is not?02br
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00GB 02br
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Top answer

01font 00 CORRECT02font 02i 02br 02br 01i 00or02i 02br 02br 01i 00I know that there 01b 00were01i 00 a pretty large group of people... 01font 00WRONG02font 02i 02br 02br 01i 00I assume it should be: There was a group of people, the group being a single 01del 00object02del 00 01b 01font 00subject00 02font 01i 00containing an uncountable 01font 00(01b 00indefinite)00 02b 01i 00number of people, but it just doesn't sound right... 02i 01font 02br 02br 00"There" is the dummy subject (the expletive).

— Buddhaheart

  • 01font 00 CORRECT02font 02i 02br 02br 01i 00or02i 02br 02br 01i 00I know that there 01b 00were01i 00 a pretty large group of people...
  • 01font 00WRONG02font 02i 02br 02br 01i 00I assume it should be: There was a group of people, the group being a single 01del 00object02del 00 01b 01font 00subject00 02font 01i 00containing an uncountable 01font 00(01b 00indefinite)00 02b 01i 00number of people, but it just doesn't sound right...
  • 02i 01font 02br 02br 00"There" is the dummy subject (the expletive).
  • The real subject is what after the ’be’ verb.
  • In "There was a group of people", the real subject is "a group of people" and it is singular in number.
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3 Answers
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0 01table01tr01td
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01i00I know that there 01b00was01i00 a pretty large group of people...01font00 CORRECT02font02i02br
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01i00or02i02br
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01i00I know that there 01b
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01cite10Grammarian-bot12cite10I know that for 11i10was12i10 the subject is anger and not emothions and it's something called 11i10inverse verb12i10. But how do we know which sentence is inverse and which is not?12blockquote
10Hi GB02br
01a
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0 01blockquote
00how do we know which sentence is inverse and which is not?12blockquote
10The normal (uninverted) order puts the subject first and the verb after the subject ("... anger ... was ..." in your example sentence). We know that this sentence has an inverted structure because the order is verb first and then the subject after the verb (...wa
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