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I saw a sentence in which "is" precedes the subject though the sentence is not interrogative. Here comes the sentence:

  • In fig. 4 is shown [the approach to equilibrium absorbance for a glass illuminated at three different intensities].

In general, when can we precede a subject by a verb?

Personally, I used such a structure a little earlier (Here comes the sentence) which I think is correct as it looks so.

What is the underlying principle behind when to bring the subject first or the verb?

F.E.
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Mehdi Haghgoo
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    "In general, when can we precede a subject by a verb?" is amusingly self-referential. As to declarative sentences, you can do that any time, that's called a hyperbaton. It can be used for emphasis or pathos, or for an alien or humoristic effect, as with Yoda speak. So in general, this question is too general. – RegDwigнt May 11 '14 at 14:04
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    I'd add that 'In fig. 4 is shown the approach to equilibrium absorbance for a glass illuminated at three different intensities' virtually screams for this ordering. The passive is preferable (to 'Fig. 4 shows the approach to equilibrium absorbance for a glass illuminated at three different intensities') and putting the complicated subject of the passive construction in the 'normal' place ('The approach to equilibrium absorbance for a glass illuminated at three different intensities is shown in fig. 4') is unwieldy and demanding almost to the point of incorrectness. – Edwin Ashworth May 11 '14 at 14:22
  • @RegDwigнt thanks. Then I conclude we can bring verbs for passive sentences first whenever we want. – Mehdi Haghgoo May 11 '14 at 14:37
  • @EdwinAshworth thank you. Why can't I vote your answers? – Mehdi Haghgoo May 11 '14 at 14:38
  • @misaq you need 15 reputation to vote posts and comments up. – Kevin May 11 '14 at 14:43
  • @misaq There are regs (you can them find by reading up under 'help'; you'll get a medal too). If you want to research further on the standard S-V-O (subject-verb-direct object) pattern for English transitive constructions, V-S-O etc constructions, 'existential there' constructions, participial phrases (In fig. 4) and the like, you can search for the terms here or on the internet in general. – Edwin Ashworth May 11 '14 at 14:46
  • The term to search for is Subject-Auxiliary Inversion. It is optional, or required, for many other constructions, like yes/no questions, wh-questions, tag questions, adverb fronting of certain kinds (In fig. 4 is exemplified a locative adverbial phrase fronting, with optional subject-auxiliary fronting.) – John Lawler May 11 '14 at 15:06
  • Your example sentence is fine, and it uses subject-dependent inversion because the subject is so heavy, and heavy elements tend to do better when postposed at the end of a clause. – F.E. May 11 '14 at 16:45
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    @F.E. So "Then was discovered uranium" sounds better than "Then uranium was discovered"? ;) – oerkelens May 11 '14 at 16:51
  • @oerkelens It took me a while, but I finally got the joke (uranium is a heavy element on the chemical chart). – F.E. May 11 '14 at 17:01
  • I gather you can't give adequate ticks or points to an answer unless they use the 'your answer' ability below. These are just supposed to be reserved for comments relating to the question, not answering the question itself. – Mogginson May 12 '14 at 04:33

1 Answers1

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Verbs can precede subjects more or less whenever you want them to. It typically looks something like this:

The dog jumped over the fence.

Over the fence, the dog jumped.

As RegDwight notes in the comments, this is called a hyperbaton:

Hyperbaton is a figure of speech that consists of an alteration of the logical order of the words in a sentence, or in which normally associated words are separated. The term may also be used more generally for all different figures of speech which transpose natural word order in sentences.

A whole bunch of detail and examples can be found on this previous answer to Why is this a hyperbaton?

For your particular example, there is no comma:

In fig. 4 is shown [...].

The more standard form is actually:

[...] is shown in fig. 4.

It is common in technical writing to move "fig. 4" to the beginning of the sentence because it is easier to read along with the description once you know which figure to look at. Why they bothered keeping "in" and "is" is beyond me. It would be much easier to read without them:

Fig. 4 shows [...].

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MrHen
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    Whenever want you them to, precede subjects verbs can? Most emphatically disagree I. German are we speaking not. – Peter Shor May 19 '14 at 18:55
  • @PeterShor: I didn't say you can do it however you wanted. You should have written "Disagree most emphatically, do I." I have no idea what your first sentence was trying to convey but I'd guess it was "Precede verbs, subjects can, whenever you want them to." And that isn't actually what I said, meant or implied. Your third example should be, "Speaking German, we are not." – MrHen May 19 '14 at 18:57
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    "Disagree most emphatically, do I" still isn't grammatical. – Peter Shor May 19 '14 at 18:58
  • It's a hyperbaton and examples of this type of usage shows up all over literature. But I certainly wouldn't recommend using it without a terribly good reason since used improperly (as you have in all three of your examples) it is extremely hard to read. – MrHen May 19 '14 at 18:59
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    Shouldn't it be "most emphatically do I disagree"? And I was trying to point out that there are rules about how you use hyperbaton, a fact which we clearly agree on but which didn't figure prominently in your answer. – Peter Shor May 19 '14 at 19:05
  • Sure, that sounds better. The point is that this kind of flip is called a hyperbaton and the answer to original question is, "You can probably do it with many/most verb/subject pairs." – MrHen May 19 '14 at 19:07
  • It’s *Over the fence jumped the dog”, which is a normal inversion pattern. – tchrist May 19 '14 at 23:43
  • @tchrist: Would that still be considered a hyperbaton? – MrHen May 20 '14 at 00:03
  • Not by me it wouldn’t. – tchrist May 20 '14 at 00:04