Structure

Question

Which is the correct way to say something like this:

1.Only by exercising a lot was I able to lose weight.

(I've seen this inverted structure when NOT ONLY is placed at the beginning of a sentence but I am not sure if this rule can also be applied to this other example).

2. Only by exercising a lot I was able to lose weight.

GPY · Accepted Answer

(1) is the correct form. (2) is not right.

BillJ · Answer

[1] Only by exercising a lot was I able to lose weight.

[2] *Only by exercising a lot I was able to lose weight.

[2] is wrong.

[1] has subject-auxiliary inversion. This occurs in declarative clauses only when certain types of element are put in front position. Negatives are one very obvious type of element that trigger subject-auxiliary inversion when fronted:

Never had I seen such chaos.

At no stage were they in danger.

"Only" is not negative, but it is semantically close to a negative, in that Only John liked it, for example, entails No one other than John liked it. The inversion is also found with some items that are not similar to negatives:

John enjoyed it and so did Robert.

Nature05 · Answer

Thanks to both of you. I appreciate you taking the time to reply to my post and give me such a good explanation.

Structure

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions