hardly anybody

[Unregistered]

Hello, good evening.

usually, we can put the negative adverb in front of the sentence to emphasize it. it is called inversion.
for example:
Little does she know how dangerous he is.

by the same token, shouldn't 'hardly' be like the below?
Hardly did anybody in my class passed.

what do you think about it?

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Hi,

Yes, you can use it.

In literary and informal language, you can use some negative adverbials at the beginning of the sentence: scarcely, barely, hardly, rarely, seldom, never before, etc.

Regards,

José Manuel Rosón Bravo

 

[Barb_D]

Hello, good evening.

usually, we can put the negative adverb in front of the sentence to emphasize it. it is called inversion.
for example:
Little does she know how dangerous he is.

by the same token, shouldn't 'hardly' be like the below?
Hardly did anybody in my class passed.

what do you think about it?

No, that doesn't work.
If you mean very few people passed, then it's "hardly anybody" and that must stay together.

Hardly anybody in my class passed. = Very few people in my class passed.

 

[TheParser]

Hello, good evening.

usually, we can put the negative adverb in front of the sentence to emphasize it. it is called inversion.
for example:
Little does she know how dangerous he is.

by the same token, shouldn't 'hardly' be like the below?
Hardly did anybody in my class passed.

what do you think about it?

***** NOT A TEACHER *****

Good morning.

Maybe (maybe) it's a matter of modification.

(1) Little does she know how dangerous he is.

(a) As you correctly said, inversion works here.

(i) the adverb "little" modifies the verb "know." = She little (hardly) knows how dangerous he is.

(2) Hardly did anybody in my class pass = does NOT work. Why?

(a) I think that "hardly" does NOT modify the verb.

(i) "Hardly" is an adverb that is referring to the word "anybody."

(a) Thus you cannot separate them.

(i) HARDLY ANYBODY + passed + in my class.

(a) Of course, you could NOT separate them:

Hardly + passed + anybody + in my class.

(ii) ALMOST NOBODY + passed + in my class.

(a) of course, you could NOT separate them:

Almost + passed + nobody + in my class.

Have a nice day!

 

[José Manuel Rosón Bravo]

Sorry, I commented the first part of the question without noticing that it was just an introduction to the problem.

I think that “Hardly did anybody in my class passed” is not right, as described by Barb_D and elaborated by TheParser.

Regards,

José Manuel Rosón Bravo