Subject after verb

Question

Hi,"And now comes all the EU sound and fury about not bowing "to Iran's intimidation and bullying"." [From The Independent.]Is it a literary device to put a verb before the subject or is it some (unknown to me) idiomatic usage of such an inversion in the sentence?Thank you.

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

I would call it a literary device. As such, uncommon it is not!

Clive

Canadian45 · Answer

Anonymous"And now comes all the EU sound and fury about not bowing "to Iran's intimidation and bullying"." [From The Independent.]

Is it a literary device to put a verb before the subject or is it some (unknown to me) idiomatic usage of such an inversion in the sentence? Thank you.
It's just a kind of grammar, one which is fairly common. Let's look at a simpler example.

'So far so good, but now comes the hard part.'

First you have one thing, and then comes something else. The emphasis of the part of the sentence after "and" is first on the bolded part, on something else coming, and later on the underlined part, on what is actually coming.

Does that help you a bit?

CalifJim · Answer

AnonymousAnd now comes all the EU sound and fury

This is a modified version of a locative inversion. Here, instead of the usual locative expression there is a temporal expression. In this structure come qualifies as a "verb of appearance"; it has the semantic value of "comes about", "comes to be". (Such inversions very frequently involve verbs of existence or verbs of appearance.)

Locative inversion:

A small cat appeared in the doorway.

In the doorway appeared a small cat.

Temporal inversion:

The sound and fury comes now.

Now comes the sound and fury.

These structures are almost always formed only with intransitive or passive verbs. there-insertion is often possible:

In the doorway there appeared a small cat.

Now there comes the sound and fury.

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Thank you, Clive, Canadian 45 and CalifJim for your useful replies.

The CalifJim's explanation has, as usual, unrivalled clarity. Thank you very much indeed.

Subject after verb

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