This book presents a comprehensive corpusbased analysis of fullverb inversion in presentday English. The author examines the distribution and pragmatic functions of fullverb inversion in different fictional and nonfictional text styles as well as in the spoken language. Surprisingly enough inversion in oral communication has not yet received the attention it deserves since most work on the topic has been restricted to the written language. It has often been claimed that fullverb inversion occurs mainly in written discourse but these claims have not yet been backed up by a detailed corpusbased analysis. This book provides a more conclusive picture of the distribution of full inversion in speech and writing and analyses the distinct pragmatic functions that the construction serves in these two modes of communication.