It’s a hypothetical “no-time” scenario. Any is strange when you have a positive rather than negative sentence. No sooner - it can be used with the past perfect or the past simple tense ( there is not any difference in meaning) Only after, Only by, Only when, Not since, Not until - when using the other type of inversion ( to invert the main clause in a sentence ) Time expressions: never, rarely, seldom Under no circumstances may audience members consume alcohol. No sooner had I settled down to read the paper than the doorbell rang. The use of this form of inversion focuses on how quickly something happened after something else had been completed. 5. Did you leave out the not? 9. The word order is the same as in questions. No sooner had they got married than they started to argue. On no condition are youto park in front of the emergency door. Only after several years training are policemen allowed to use guns. Not until you grow … Hardly, barely, no sooner, or scarcely. Here are some negative adverbs and adverb phrases that we often use with inversion: As for using the conjunctive for the second conditional, that’s not strictly necessary. What is an «inversion»? At no time can you use my new car. In no way could I persuade her to see the foolishness of her plan. Inversion involves changing the position of the subject and auxiliary or modal verb. ('Seldom' is at the beginning, so we use inversion. In this type of inversion, the subject and the auxiliary switch positions. In the present and past simple, the auxiliaries do/does and did come before the subject, which is followed by the bare infinitive. Example: "Not until we had / had we reached the top did we realize how far we had come.". EXERCISE 2 1. Inversion - English Grammar Today - uma referência à Gramática e uso do Inglês escrito e falado - Cambridge Dictionary If a sentence begins with not until, what is the rule for inversion of subject and verb directly after not until?? 7. Question. Phrases containing no/not: on no account, under no circumstances, at no time, in no way, on no condition, not until, not only…(but also), etc. Read more about Subject-auxiliary inversion; Little did the gang know that the police had them under surveillance. 6. If a negative adverb or adverbial expression is put at the beginning of a clause for emphasis, it is usually followed by auxiliary verb + subject. These time expressions are used when there is a succession of events in the past. The inversion is required only when under no circumstances comes at the beginning of a clause. This is a normal sentence with no special emphasis.) This sentence emphasizes what beautiful work it is.) I have seldom seen such beautiful work. 2. … An inversion generally begins with a negative word or phrase. At no time are sentries allowed to leave their posts. The correct … ('Seldom' is in the normal place, so we don't use inversion. The inversion is obligatory, and the sentence is still wrong to me with not: (B ′) Under any circumstances, I will not surrender to the enemy. 8. 'We never went to the shopping centre.' I had a quick look at a corpus and found that “If I was …” actually outperforms “If I were …” with just over 11,000 entries and just over 9,000 entries respectively. Thank you, Serge, United States Answer. becomes 'At no time did we go to the shopping centre.' Negative Adverbials. We use inversion: When we start a sentence with a negative adverbial expression, an adverbial expression of place, or simply an adverb ... "At no time had I (ever) seen the film."