1352: Syntactic Ambiguity: Adverbs Aug 24, 2018

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English usually has a pretty strict order for its sentences, but adverbs and other adjuncts can move about just about anywhere in a sentence. Sometimes this changes the meaning, such as in the famous example: "only I love you" versus "I only love you", but in most sentences where the meaning is unaffected, the tendency is to place only as early on as possible, usually right before the verb. However, as was shown clearly above, there can be varied meanings and misunderstandings are bound to occur. Generally, adjuncts are most effective and clearly understood when placed just before the emphasis. In "I saw her only once" versus "I only saw her once", the former indicates that there was only one occurrences of seeing her whereas the latter allows for the possibility that she was perceived in other ways: heard, felt, or otherwise.

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