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Paco2004 Posted 22 years ago
Grammar

SV inversion

Hi Teachers.

Sentence examples;
(1) With no job would Joe be happy.
(2) With no job, Joe would be happy.
I know (1) says Joe is unhappy because of having a job and (2) says Joe would be happy even if he has no job.
But how do you make out the difference just by knowing the positions of the subject and the verb?

paco
  

Top answer

In the cases you offer, (1) is, in fact, a question! The second suggests Joe is unhappy having a job.

— Asdf11391

  • In the cases you offer, (1) is, in fact, a question!
  • The second suggests Joe is unhappy having a job.
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6 Answers
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In the cases you offer, (1) is, in fact, a question!

The second suggests Joe is unhappy having a job.
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Bermbits

Thank you for the comment.
In the cases you offer, (1) is, in fact, a question!
The second suggests Joe is unhappy having a job.

Really??? So did I learn a wrong English grammar???

paco
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(1) With no job would Joe be happy.
(2) With no job, Joe would be happy.

1. There is no job that would please Joe.
There isn't any job that Joe would be happy with.
No job would make Joe happy.
Joe would not be happy, no matter what job he had.

2) If Joe had no job, he would be happy.
Unemployment suits Joe just fine.
If Joe lost his job, h
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CJ

Thank you. So we can take the sense various ways for each sentence. Anyway I feel the grammar of subject-verb inversions is extremely hard for us non-native speakers to master.
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I can sympathize. When I learned French I found that French also has SV inversion - but NOT in the same way that English does!
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Is a kind of negative sense associated with SV inversion more ofter than not?
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