Special Types of Adverbs Broad Negatives make a statement ALMOST negative. Common broad negatives are: barely, hardly, rarely, scarcely, seldom, and only. Like the negative adverbs, not and never, they go
· after the verb BE He is hardly ever late. She is only 18 years old.
· between an auxiliary verb and its main verb The party has scarcely begun. I have rarely seen such exquisite work.
· at the beginning of a sentence for dramatic effect Rarely does he get to class on time. Only if it starts to rain will the game be cancelled. NOTE: When broad negatives are at the beginning of a sentence, there is inverted subject/verb order. Adverbial prepositional phrases also cause sentences to invert their subject/verb order when they are
· essential to the message of a sentence
· at the beginning of the sentence. At the library was a rare collection of 15th century books. Essential because you can’t say – “A rare collection was.” This style of writing is very dramatic, and so would probably not be used in business or scientific writing. Instead, you would probably write: At the library, there was a rare collection of 15 th century books. At the library the students researched their topics. Not essential because you can say – “The students researched their topics.”