(grammar)Deviation from standardword order, as for example by putting the predicate before the subject. It takes place in questions withauxiliary verbs; in normal, affirmative clauses beginning with a negative particle, for the purpose ofemphasis; and in otherrhetorical devices or unusual situations.
Inversion takes place in the sentence 'Is she here?' — 'is', the predicate, is before 'she', the subject.(with an auxiliary verb)
Inversion takes place in the sentence 'Never have I done that.' — 'have', the predicate, is before 'I', the subject, due to 'never' being the first word of the sentence.(for the purpose of emphasis)
2007/08, abergs, “INFL-to-COMP movement”, inEnglish Language and Linguistics Online[1], archived fromthe original on8 January 2018:
Question formation involves the phenomenon commonly known as subject-auxiliaryinversion, a change in word order in which the auxiliary moves in front of the subject. (a) Here we shall describe this phenomenon in terms of movement of the element under INFL into COMP position. (b) According to this analysis, what looks like an exchanging of positions between the subject and auxiliary (or INFL element, in GB terms) is actually the movement of the INFL element past the subject position into COMP. (c) INFL-to-COMP movement seems to be triggered by the presence of the [+WH] feature in COMP.
1897, W. Havelock Ellis,Sexual Inversion, page202:
We can seldom, therefore, congratulate ourselves on the success of any "cure" ofinversion.
1975, R. M. Koster,The Dissertation, page118:
My father, León Fuertes, was a fag three years;[…] He put on all the trappings ofinversion: the twittered mouthings, the hyper-feminine moues, the languid mincings.
(genetics) Freeman et al., "Copy number variation: New insights into genome diversity" Genome Res 2006; 16: 949-61. — "DNA copy number variation has long been associated with specific chromosomal rearrangements and genomic disorders, but its ubiquity in mammalian genomes was not fully realized until recently. Although our understanding of the extent of this variation is still developing, it seems likely that, at least in humans, copy number variants (CNVs) account for a substantial amount of genetic variation."
