Sentence transformations!

Question

Hello everyone! I've got trouble doing transformations with inversions. So i'd like to ask you:
1. Do we go one tense back when we do transformations with No sooner and Hardly? If so, in which cases?
2. Also, when we have transformations with Not Until, what happens- is there any change in the tense?
3. What tense is used when we have sentences with "By the time..." ?
PS I'M ASKING YOU WITHOUT GIVING ANY EXAMPLES, SO SORRY ABOUT IT, BUT I'M PRACTICING FOR AN OLYMPIAD AND IF YOU HAVE SOME EXAMPLES PLEASE POST! I'D BE REALLY THANKFUL. By the way, do you know any site where i can practice transformations with only the word given.
Thanks in advance, xoxo

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

" Hello everyone! I've got trouble doing transformations with inversions. So i'd like to ask you:
1. Do we go one tense back when we do transformations with No sooner and Hardly? If so, in which cases?
2. Also, when we have transformations with Not Until, what happens- is there any change in the tense?
3. What tense is used when we have sentences with "By the time..." ?
PS I'M ASKING YOU WITHOUT GIVING ANY EXAMPLES, SO SORRY ABOUT IT, BUT I'M PRACTICING FOR AN OLYMPIAD AND IF YOU HAVE SOME EXAMPLES PLEASE POST! I'D BE REALLY THANKFUL. By the way, do you know any site where i can practice transformations with only the word given.
Thanks in advance, xoxo"

1. Both adverbs Hardly and no sooner are used when one thing happens very soon after another in the past:

I had hardly finished my lunch when the telephone rang.

I had no sooner sat down than (when) the telephone started ringing.

In a formal writing the sentences have an inverted order:

Hardly had I finished my lunch when the telephone rang.

No sooner had I sat down than (when) the telephone started ringing.

The previous actions (those qualified by hardly and no sooner) are usually in the past perfect tense and the following ones (those expressed in the when-clauses) in a simple past .

2. See:

http://www.usingenglish.com/forum/advanced/1703-not-until.html

Some examples (from the Internet) of usage "Not until" at the beginning of the sentence with the inverted word order:

Not until I asked a passer-by did I realise where I was.
Not until the midnight did she come.

Not until it was late did I remember to buy petrol.

Not until that evening was she able to recover her self-control.

Not until I got home did I notice that I forgot to take the keys from the office

Not until he came back home had he realized that he took the wrong documents from the office.

3.

The simple present:

By the time we arrive home, they will be there.

The simple past:

By the time we arrived home, they had left (they left).

Sentence transformations!

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