Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkRamsey
I've noticed that in the following sentence " The dormitory was completely silent, and, had he been less preoccupied, Harry would have realised that the absence of Neville's usual snores meant that he was not the only one lying awake". There is an inversion of verb and subject in the second line of this paragraph and I've been always taught to tell the verb after the subject if I don't want make a question. So I don't understand because It's said "...; had he been less preoccupied...". I'd be very grateful to you if you could explain to me the why.
By the way maybe I have just made some mistakes. English is not my mother tongue. However I hope that you could help me.
Thank you very much.
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There is no rule in English grammar (except this one
) which does not have an exception. The verb order here is a special case of inversion in a subjunctive mood expressing a hypothetical situation.
had he been less preoccupied
is identical to
if he had been less preoccupied
This is used only in cases when something did not happen:
I would have been famous, had I practised the piano more (...but I didn't)
I would have made a meal had I known you were going to visit ( ... but I didn't know)
Does that help? By the way, Harry Potter is
terrible English - the Spanish translation is much better.