Find the grammatically correct sentence from below options.
Scarcely had he arrived when the meeting started.
The sentence tests two linked rules: the correlative pair used with 'scarcely', and the inversion required when a negative adverb opens a sentence.
Rule 1 - collocation: 'scarcely' and 'hardly' pair with 'when' (and 'no sooner' pairs with 'than'). So 'scarcely ... when' is correct and 'scarcely ... than' is wrong.
Rule 2 - inversion: when a negative/limiting adverb like 'scarcely' begins the clause, the auxiliary comes before the subject, giving 'had he arrived' instead of 'he had arrived'.
Rule 3 - tense: the earlier action takes the past perfect ('had arrived') and the later action takes the simple past ('started'), showing correct sequence of tenses.
Option 1, 'Scarcely had he arrived when the meeting started,' satisfies the inversion, the past-perfect-then-simple-past order and the 'when' collocation.
Options 2 and 3 wrongly use 'than' with 'scarcely'; options 2 and 4 also fail to invert the subject and auxiliary after the opening 'scarcely'.
Hence the grammatically correct sentence is Scarcely had he arrived when the meeting started.
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