Inversion: Disappointed by this situation were not only the students of the...

[Navi]

Which is corect:

1-Disappointed by this situation were not only the students of the universities but also high school students.
2-Disappointed were not only the students of the universities but also high school students.

[Alan]

Hi Navi,

Word order in English can be very flexible. I believe the important point to consider is how well a sentence 'flows' A test of its effectiveness can often be done by reading it out aloud to hear how it sounds. As I understand it, the sentence is making the point that two types of students were disappointed. If you read out sentence 1 and sentence 2, neither seems to flow since both sound disjointed. I would therefore make a third suggestion:

Not only university students but also high school students were disappointed by the situation.

Alan
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English as a Second Language
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