I got this question in my English exam this morning and have been wondering about it:
So my questions are:
- Can "Not long before [something happened/an event/a point in time]" be seen grammatically as "Before [something happed...]?
If the answer is yes, than the sentence will become "Before the interval, ____________.". Therefore, I can totally choose B. so that the complete sentence will be "Before the interval, the critic came to the theater.", right?
- If the answer is D., the sentence will become "Not long before the interval, did the critic come to the theatre."
However, I think the comma is absolutely abundant. So my questions are:
2.1. Can we use a comma before a 'subject-auxiliary verb inversion'?
2.2. Is "Not (so) long before/after ..." counted as a way of beginning an inversion?
Thank you. And if there is any grammar mistakes above, please tell me too.