Can anyone please tell me why we don't use inversion after "only a few years ago"?
Today I was doing one of the CPE exercises from Side and Wellman and I encountered the following sentence :
"Only a few years ago the herring gull more often than not remained close to the sea and nested on cliffs."
My question is, why don't we use inversion here after "only a few years" as I have always been taught that, after "only + when or the specific time" we use inversion.
"Only when Mohegan scouts led them through the woods did the settlers stand much of a chance."
Is that not true ?
I have already checked plenty of sentences in COCA none of which used inversion. Why ?
Best Answer
The presenting question asks about this grammatical sentence
[I'll return to the bracketed expressions below]
because of a rule which was not applied, even though
That is, in technical terms ("inversion" is a general term; this is one specific inversion rule), when an adverbial phrase of time, place, or circumstance occurs at the beginning of the sentence, subject-auxiliary inversion may occur, provided the appropriate conditions are met.
So the question is really about why this sentence (where this inversion rule has been applied)
is ungrammatical.
And the reason is because the appropriate conditions for the rule are not met. Basically, this kind of inversion is a negative phenomenon -- if the preposed adverbial negates the whole sentence, then inversion is required, not just allowed. For instance,
is grammatical, while
is not, because the whole clause I have seen such a thing is negated by the never.
The sentence has exactly the same meaning as
But in the presenting example, the phrase only a few years ago does not negate the sentence.
Indeed, it means the same as the phrase a few years ago; one can be substituted for the other
with no difference in meaning at all. Only is just a way of expressing the speaker's surprise at how short a time it has been. Similar remarks apply to not long ago, another fixed phrase that also contains a negative but does not negate the sentence. These phrases are self-contained, and one can substitute ten years ago without changing meaning. In this phrase only doesn't negate anything, and so the phrase can go just as well at the end of the sentence as the front.
Similar remarks apply as well to the not in more often than not, another closed idiom containing an overt negative that doesn't negate anything and merely muddies the waters. Stylistically, this sentence is a mess; but it is grammatical.
As a semanticist might say, the negative trigger only has narrow scope in this phrase (like the not in more often than not), and therefore there is no negation of the clause itself. Thus, subject-auxiliary inversion can't occur with this preposed phrase.
Executive summary: The rule you "have always been taught" is wrong. The rule should have mentioned negation of the clause. Instead it gave one instance and generalized it, incorrectly.
This is typical of English grammar rules that people "have always been taught". Sorry about that.
As for references, here is one of the first published accounts of this phenomenon.