Placing an adverb at the very beginning of a sentence sets a formal, literary tone. In French, starting a sentence with specific adverbs like peut-être (perhaps), sans doute (probably), à peine (barely), or ainsi (thus) triggers subject-verb inversion.
Complex Inversion
When the subject is a noun (like le satellite or la comète), you cannot simply swap the noun and the verb. Instead, use complex inversion:
- Leave the noun subject where it normally goes (before the verb).
- Add a matching subject pronoun (il, elle, ils, or elles) immediately after the verb, attached with a hyphen.
- If the verb ends in a vowel and the pronoun is il or elle, insert a -t- to make pronunciation smoother.
Peut-être and Sans doute
Notice how the noun stays in front of the verb, while the hyphenated pronoun is added right after it.
| Perhaps the satellite discovered a new planet. | Peut-être le satellite a-t-il découvert une nouvelle planète. |
| Perhaps the comet is dangerous. | Peut-être la comète est-elle dangereuse. |
| Probably the space journey would be too long. | Sans doute le voyage spatial serait-il trop long. |
À peine ... que
When placed at the start of a sentence, à peine (barely/hardly) pairs with que (when) to describe two things happening in rapid succession. The complex inversion happens in the first part of the sentence.
| Barely does the probe leave the atmosphere when it sends the message. | À peine la sonde quitte-t-elle l'atmosphère qu'elle envoie le message. |
| Hardly had the eclipse started when the astronomer panicked. | À peine l'éclipse a-t-elle commencé que l'astronome a paniqué. |
Ainsi
When placing ainsi (thus/so) at the beginning of a sentence to draw a conclusion, use the same complex inversion.
| Thus, the astronaut saw no one in the cosmos. | Ainsi l'astronaute n'a-t-il vu personne dans le cosmos. |
| Thus infinite space hid the meteorite we talked about. | Ainsi l'espace infini a-t-il caché la météorite dont nous avons parlé. |