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Pronouns & Basic Sentence Structure
Subject and object pronouns, possessives, demonstratives, and basic SVO word order
Subject-auxiliary inversion
Never have I seen / Rarely does she go / Not only did he fail — formal emphasis
Fronting of object
This I cannot forgive / That decision we could not accept — object moved to front
Fronting of adverbial
Into the room walked the teacher / On the shelf stood a vase — literary/formal
it-cleft sentences
It was John who called, not David / It is this point that I want to stress
wh-cleft sentences
What surprised me was her answer / What I enjoy most is reading
Pseudo-cleft: All I want is...
All I want is some peace / The only thing she needs is rest — emphatic
Apposition
My colleague, a brilliant linguist, gave the lecture — noun phrase adds information
Absolute phrases
Weather permitting, we will go / All things considered, it was a success
Ellipsis in conversation
"Did she come?" "Yes, she did (come)" — understood part is dropped
Substitution with "so" and "do so"
"Is she coming?" "I think so / I hope so / I believe so" — avoids repetition
