What kind of inversion is this? "Out come the pocket calculators"


Please help me understand the grammar of this sentence:



When the girls get their bills, out come the pocket calculators.



What connotations does this inversion add? Can "out come" here be analyzed as a phrasal verb? If so, what other phrasal verbs can be inverted this way so that the preposition precedes the verb?



Answer




When the girls get their bills, out come the pocket calculators.



The main clause of your example has undergone subject-dependent inversion:




  1. [the pocket calculators] come [out] -- (non-inverted)




  2. [out] come [the pocket calculators] -- (subject-dependent inversion)




In version #1, the subject ("the pocket calculators") is located in its typical slot--before the verb. But in version #2, the subject has switched its location with that of the dependent "out".


There are reasons related to information packaging why a writer or speaker might prefer the inverted versions for certain contexts. Some of these reasons are: 1) newer info is often moved to the end of a clause, 2) info that is to be emphasized is often moved to the end of a clause for a stronger effect on the reader. Both of those reasons seem applicable to your example.


Notice how your original sentence reads better (imo) than this more basically structured version:



  • The pocket calculators come out when the girls get their bills.


In your original version, "the pocket calculators"--by being placed at the end of the sentence--get emphasized to the reader. It was the pocket calculators that the writer wanted to be the main, and unexpected, point of the sentence.


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