"Inversio" is Latin for "turning over". In the linguistic sense, the term inversion is a change in the order of the arrangement of words in a phrase, phrase or sentence.
Inversion is a stylistic figure, its purpose is to enhance the expression of speech, give it more brightness, highlight a certain thought of the author.
The expressiveness of the impact of the inversion word order on the reader depends on the moment of surprise: the word suddenly appears at the beginning of the sentence (instead of the traditional location at the end of the construction) or appears at the very end (instead of the usual position at the beginning), drawing the reader's attention to the thought, which is included in it. Inversion, examples of which are given below, can act both as the main members of the sentence (subject, predicate) and secondary ones: definitions, circumstances, additions:
- A banal case helped them (subject inverted).
- I do not consider him a reliable partner (predicate inverted).
- This proposal was accepted with surprise (the circumstance was inverted).
- Finally stopped this pettydrizzling rain (subject inverted).
- It's been a lovely day! (definition reversed).
- Cautiously, he opened the door and peered inside (the circumstance was reversed).
Examples of inversion from fiction:
I wanted to get into a new captivity (D. Byron). Suddenly he saw a large forge in the forest (Ludwig Tieck). This almost always happens in the super-urban setting of a fantastic city…(A. Tolstoy).
Inversion, examples of its functioning and typology are determined by the language classification. This, of course, is not always easy. Inversion in English is largely determined by its belonging to the analytical class. Unlike Russian, English sentence inversion is more fixed.
Let's conduct a small comparative analysis of interrogative sentences.
Inversion. Examples in Russian:
Does he live in Samara?/Does he live in Samara?/Does he live in Samara?
Does Laura work for New Airlines?/Does Laura work for New Airlines?
Are you going to your club tonight?/Are you going to your club tonight?/Are you going to your club tonight?
The free word order in a sentence is largely determined by the fact that the Russian language belongs to synthetic ones.
Another picture in an English sentence using grammatical inversion with a fixed word order. The interrogative construction begins with an auxiliary verb, followed by a typical pattern: subject-predicate-object(circumstance)
Inversion. Examples in English:
Does he live in Samara?
Does Lora work for New Airlines Company?
Are you going to your club tonight?
As for the declarative sentence, here you can see a similar arrangement of accent words in the English and Russian sentences.
Rarely have I seen such great architecture! - Seldom have I seen such a splendid architecture!
In the Russian and English versions, the word seldom (in the sentence - circumstance) is an inversion. It gives an emotional coloring to the statement, emphasizing the rarity of the phenomenon (in order to enhance the effect of perception, the word is placed at the beginning of the sentence).
