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when the subject of a sentence is delayed as in "never did i dream such a thing" as opposed to "i never dreamt.." what is it called? is there a grammatical term for this? all i can think of is that the word order is that of a question, verb before subject. what about "hot, isn't it, today?" please help!
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Carpal Tunnel
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My good man, to the right place you have come.
anastrophe.
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The change round of verb and subject, as in Never have I seen such a mess , is called inversion. Annastrophic's example, where a word or expression is moved to the front of the sentence for emphasis without changing the subject verb order, is called fronting, e.g. A crying shame I call it.
Bingley
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annastrophic
rarely have i laughed so much!
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old hand
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well, if Anastrophic's example is not an anastrophe, then what is an anastrophe?
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william,  *ahem* anastrophe a.nas.tro.phe n. Inversion of the normal syntactic order of words, for example: To market went she.[Gk. anastrophe] Example: Woolf, Virgina, Works of Virginia Woolf: The Lighthouse., Monarch Notes, 01-01-1963. "Mrs. Woolf also makes use of other figures of speech such as anastrophe (the deliberate inversion of word order)..." op.cit. http://mbhs.bergtraum.k12.ny.us/cybereng/lit_terms/index.html
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old hand
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Are we saying that anastrophe is any type of change in word order, and inversion and fronting are just more specific?
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annastrophic
forgive my lack of on the ballness here. the anastrophe thing would be the one where the subject and verb (forming one group) and the object (forming another group) are inverted, as in "a good beer, guinness is". the inversion thing would be, if i'm following, when the subject and verb swap places as in "a good beer, IS GUINNESS". in which case the second example would be an anastrophic inversion? an inversion inside an anastrophe?
let me know if i've got it!
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As far as I know, william, it's not at all that subtle: anastrophe and inversion are synonymous. However, the use of 'anastrophe' is restricted to literary analysis while a whole lot of things can be inverted  . Also, the use of anastrophe is an intentional literary device; don't know if you can say the same for inversion. 'Fronting' was a new one on me, though... anxiously awaiting more from Bingley.
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I think anastrophe is the literary criticism/rhetoric people's name, while inversion and fronting are the grammarians' terms.
From The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar, pg. 163:
fronting
The unusual placing of a sentence element at the beginning of the sentence.
English sentences typically begin with a subject, but other functional elements -- object, complement, adverbial, and even part of the verb phrase -- can be placed at the beginning in order to mark the THEME, e.g.
Loud music I do not like (fronted object)
Horrible I call it (fronted complement)
After half an hour we walked out (fronted adverbial)
Walked out, we did. (fronted verb)
The entry for inversion (pg. 212-213) is longer than I care to copy out, but the beginning says:
inversion
The reversal of the usual word order.
The term is particularly used in relation to subjects and verbs.
Bingley
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