In a test I had earlier, there in this sentence :
___ does he come home before 11 AM for he does not want to hear his mother's complaint
There are two answers : "Never" and "Always", with the former was what my teacher chose. I argued that the latter was perfectly fine too, for it meant that the man does not wish to hear his mother's voice of distress because of his schedule. She disagreed, and insisted that "Always" cannot be used as an adverbial for inversion.
Was she correct ?
Best Answer
Your teacher was right. Subject-auxiliary inversion occurs in declarative clauses only when certain types of element are put in front position. Negatives like never are one very obvious type of element that trigger subject-auxiliary inversion when fronted, as in Never does he come home before 11am ...
But always is not negative and hence does not trigger inversion, so we get the uninverted He always comes home before 11am ..., but not the inverted * Always does he come home before 11am ...