Do you really say "have I" not "I have"?

Posted Feb 1, 2010 3:52pm by Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

Joined: Dec 12th, 2009
Posts: 95

Why?

---------I'm used to travel by air and only one occasion have I ever felt frightened.

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wefrucar

Joined: Dec 28th, 2008
Posts: 4,373

Re: Do you really say "have I" not "I have"?

Posted by: wefrucar on Feb 1, 2010 4:25pm

In this case, yes. I'm not really sure why, actually.
But you could correctly re-write it as "... and I have only ever felt frightened on one occasion."

This kind of structure (which isn't all that colloquial these days) seems to be used when specifying and stressing a limited occurrence. Eg. "Never did I imagine that..."
You could write that as "I never imagined that..."
Note the placements of "never" and "on one occasion" in each example.

As for what explains this rule.... ask zhenlai, lol.

Sometimes I feel it is maybe unbearable always be traditional Chinese girl.