Triggering Inversion
Example: Inversion after Initial Adverbs

Despite syntactic fixing, deviations arose after initial adverbs like here, now, then, therefore, thus and yet. The following example depicts the inversion of subject and modal after the adverb then:

“and then shalt thou see clearly [...]” (Matthew 7.5. The Authorised Version of the English Bible. 1611).

While the common word-order would place the subject thou after the initial adverb, here the first constituent then is followed by a modal. This phenomenon was particularly applied, when the verb phrase was composed of an auxiliary and a full verb, but also in connection with a “heavy subject” (Nevalainen 2006, 113):

“and then followeth feebleness of the wittes [...]” (Thomas Vicary. The Anatomie of the Bodie of Man. 1548: 33-4).

In the seventeenth century, however, this type of inversion after sentence-initial adverbials decreased in number and only occurs in constructions like “here comes/is NN” (Nevalainen 2006, 113).

Examples taken from: Nevalainen 2006, 113