NEGATIVE INVERSION IN STANDARD ENGLISH

Abstract

This paper takes a descriptive approach to several  properties of Negative Inversion (NI) in Standard English found controversial in prescriptive writings, comparing what has been previously written in the literature with real native English speakers’ grammaticality judgements gathered via a questionnaire. These topics include the disagreement on the optionality of subject-auxiliary (subj-aux) inversion, the different approaches to an accurate syntax analysis, whether NI behaves as a Root Phenomenon (RT) or not,  and the inaccurate classification of Only Inversion as a subtype of NI.