is23lame

[kind kelp]

Please be patient

Our volunteers look into many questions every day; sometimes it takes them a little while to answer.

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Make it descriptive, including relevant context, but also to the point. This way you improve your chances of getting a more relevant and specific answer.

[jovial lily]

it's the verb "écrire" in the passé simple in the 3rd person singular inverted before the pronoun "elle"

[wheat imp]

huh

isn't it in the present tense?

[jovial lily]

given that it appears to be a story, no

it could be

[wheat imp]

but it isn't in the passé simple either

[wheat imp]

hmm

[jovial lily]

oh no you're right

[dire kindle]

why did they invert it

[jovial lily]

it's present tense lol

écrivit is apparently the passé simple

yuck

[jovial lily]

it's a stylistic inversion in writing

[dire kindle]

stylistic?

like are écrit-elle and elle écrit the same?

[jovial lily]

does English happen to be your native language?

[dire kindle]

ohh i see what you did there

[jovial lily]

Well, I didn't do a stylistic inversion, there

but is English your native?

[dire kindle]

no, and I got the idea cimer beaucoup!

[jovial lily]

ok, well, it's important to differentiate stylistic inversion and inversion used in questions fwiw

this is an example of stylistic inversion used in story telling

and it functions differently from question inversion

[dire kindle]

how so?

[jovial lily]

sorry, this isn't stylistic inversion, this is inversion with a citation

which has even different rules lmao

you can search "inversion dans une incise" if you want to learn more about it

[small dragon]

English has it too, any reason why you're not mentioning that @jovial lily ?

"good joke", said she.

[jovial lily]

that's why I asked if they were an English native but they said no