LESS COMMON THEMATISATIONS IN THE DECLARATIVE CLAUSE
Negative adverbs
When we place negative adverbs such as never in initial position, we seem to be responding to a communicative human need to foreground and emphasize the negation. But while Never! can be used as a one-word negative response in conversation, thematized negative constituents are much less easy to use in English than in some other languages. This is because they trigger the inversion of an existing auxiliary (or do-operator) with the subject. Furthermore, thematized negatives have an emphatic, marked effect, as can be seen from the following famous utterance made by Winston Churchill after the Battle of Britain in the Second World War. The second utterance was made as a comment on television about the IRA’s apology in 2002 for the loss of life of non-combatants over three decades.
Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
Never before has the IRA acknowledged the loss of life in its 30-year paramilitary campaign.
In everyday use such a rhetorical effect may be undesirable, and it is best to reserve fronted negative elements for emphatic statements or directives. With the imperative, there is no inversion, as the base form of the verb is used: Never say ‘never again’! Certain dependent clauses of condition are likewise fronted: Should you wish to change your mind, please let us know. The negative adjuncts never and under no circumstances, fronted semi- negatives such as hardly, scarcely and only + an adverb of time all have a marked effect when fronted. Their unmarked position before the main verb avoids this problem (I have never seen . . . You must under no circumstances leave . . .).
The positive and negative elements most commonly thematized in everyday spoken English are so and neither or nor as substitute words. They behave like initial negatives, provoking operator-subject ordering, but they have no rhetorical effect.
All my friends passed the driving-test and so did I.
A. Never have I seen such a mess! B. Nor have I.
Under no circumstances must medicines be left within reach of children.
Only then did I realize what he really meant.
