inversion

See also: inversión and Inversion

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈvɝʒən/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ɪnˈvɜːʃən/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)ʃən

Noun

inversion (countable and uncountable, plural inversions)

1. The action of inverting.
2. Being upside down, in an inverted state.
3. Being in a reverse sequence, in an inverted state.
4. (music)
   1. The move of one pitch in an interval up or down an octave.
   2. The reversal of an interval.
   3. The reversal of the pitch contour.
   4. The reversal of a pitch class succession, such as a contrapuntal line or melody.
   5. The subtraction of pitch classes in a set from twelve, which maps intervals onto their complements with respect to 0, and preserves interval classes, symbolized IX (X being the transposition that is inverted.).
5. (genetics) a segment of DNA in the context of a chromosome that is reversed in orientation relative to a reference karyotype or genome
6. (meteorology) An increase of air temperature with increase in altitude (the ground being colder than the surrounding air). When an inversion exists, there are no convection currents and wind speeds are below 5 knots. The atmosphere is stable and normally is considered the most favorable state for ground release of chemical agents.
7. (grammar) Deviation from standard word order by putting the predicate before the subject. It takes place in questions with auxiliary verbs and in normal, affirmative clauses beginning with a negative particle, for the purpose of emphasis.

   (with an auxiliary verb) Inversion takes place in the sentence 'Is she here?' — 'is', the predicate, is before 'she', the subject.

   (for the purpose of emphasis) Inversion takes place in the sentence 'Never have I done that.' — 'have', the predicate, is before 'I', the subject, due to 'never' being the first word of the sentence.

   • 2007/08, abergs, “INFL-to-COMP movement”, in English Language and Linguistics Online‎^[1], retrieved 2014-05-22:

     Question formation involves the phenomenon commonly known as subject-auxiliary inversion, a change in word order in which the auxiliary moves in front of the subject.
     (a) Here we shall describe this phenomenon in terms of movement of the element under INFL into COMP position.
     (b) According to this analysis, what looks like an exchanging of positions between the subject and auxiliary (or INFL element, in GB terms) is actually the movement of the INFL element past the subject position into COMP.
     (c) INFL-to-COMP movement seems to be triggered by the presence of the [+WH] feature in COMP.

8. (algebra) An operation on a group, analogous to negation.
9. (psychology, obsolete) Homosexuality, particularly in early psychoanalysis.
   • 1897, W. Havelock Ellis, Sexual Inversion, p. 202:

     We can seldom, therefore, congratulate ourselves on the success of any "cure" of inversion.

Derived terms

Terms derived from inversion

• paracentric inversion

• pericentric inversion

• temperature inversion

Translations

deviation from standard word order by putting the predicate before the subject, in questions with auxiliary verbs and for the purpose of emphasis

• Armenian: շրջադասություն (hy) (šrǰadasutʿyun), շրջում (hy) (šrǰum)
• Bengali: অপেক্ষিক f (ôpekkhik)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 倒裝 (zh), 倒装 (zh) (dàozhuāng)

• Finnish: käänteinen sanajärjestys
• French: inversion (fr) f
• German: Inversion (de) f

• Ido: inversigo (io)
• Japanese: 倒置法 (とうちほう, tōchihō), 転倒 (ja) (てんとう, tentō), 倒置 (とうち, tōchi)
• Macedonian: инве́рзија f (invérzija)
• Portuguese: inversão (pt) f
• Russian: инве́рсия (ru) f (invérsija), обра́тный поря́док слов m (obrátnyj porjádok slov)
• Spanish: inversión (es) f

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Irish: ^{(please verify)} aisiompú m

See also

• twelve tone technique
• serialism

References

• (music) DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. →ISBN, Ch. 6.
• (genetics) Lars Feuk, Andrew R. Carson and Stephen W. Scherer (February 2006). "Structural variation in the human genome," Nature, 7:85.
• (genetics) Freeman et al., "Copy number variation: New insights into genome diversity" Genome Res 2006; 16: 949-61. — "DNA copy number variation has long been associated with specific chromosomal rearrangements and genomic disorders, but its ubiquity in mammalian genomes was not fully realized until recently. Although our understanding of the extent of this variation is still developing, it seems likely that, at least in humans, copy number variants (CNVs) account for a substantial amount of genetic variation."

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French

Noun

inversion f (plural inversions)

1. inversion
2. deviance (especially sexual)

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Venetian

Etymology

Compare Italian inversione

Noun

inversion f (invariable)

1. inversion (all senses)
2. reversal, reversing