Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[faith2k]

Regarding a paired conjunction, not only... but also, I hve two questions.

1) In the following sentence, "Not only was she a star of the stage, but (also) of the screen," is comma after the not only clause required or optional?

2) What is the rule that we reverse the subject and verb order? (In other words, how can you as an English teacher explain the rule of the subject and verb reversal?)

Thank you.

[asterix]

A comma comes between two independent clauses joined by coordinating or correlative conjunctions, such as, and, but,or, nor, neither, yet, for, or so.

You should include the comma.

It seems to me that if you say she was not only... but also ... in other words, if you use the verb + subject before the correlating conjunction, the order is as usual (subject + verb). If you put them after the conjunction you reverse the order.
Not only was she A... but also B.

It seems to work with Not only but also.
With neither...... nor It seems to work with the reversal after nor.
She could neither sing nor was she smart.

I am not an English teacher, but if you go to http://flang1.kendall.mdc.edu/4/440/
or Google "Paired conjunctions" you will get thousands of interesting hits.

[faith2k]

Thank you, Asterix for the explanation.
I checked the Web site you recommended, but found it has many broken links.
But thank you for the help.

Faith2k

[Mary W. Ng]

Question:

1) In the following sentence, "Not only was she a star of the stage, but (also) of the screen," is comma after the not only clause required or optional?

Answer:

The quoted sentence is incorrect. "Not only...but also" are correlative conjunctions and should join items that are identical in form and function. In the quoted sentence, "not only...but also" join a main clause to a prepositional phrase. The sentence should be rephrased.

"She was a star not only of the stage but also of the screen."

Here we have a parallel construction of two prepositional phrases: of the stage and of the screen. No comma is used before "but also" because the items joined are of equal importance.

Question:

2) What is the rule that we reverse the subject and verb order?

Answer:

There are quite a few rules for inversion. You may have to look them up in some advanced grammar books. I can give you two examples of inversion:

1. "Can you explain this to me?"

Questions are normally inverted.

2. "She could not sing, nor could I."

"Nor could I" is a negative addition to the preceding negative statement.

I hope this helps.
_________________
Mary W. Ng
Helping students learn grammar
http:www.aimpublishing.com