grammar - Where do you place words such as certainly, surely in a sentence?


I struggle constantly or is it I constantly struggle with the usage of such words. I don't even what they are called in English grammar.


My question: how do I know whether I'm grammatically correct when using such words?


Examples: Is it



I certainly will complete the report



or



I will certainly complete the report



Is it



I struggle constantly with English



or



I constantly struggle with English



Is it



Am I grammatically correct?



or



Am I correct grammatically?



I hope you get the idea.



Answer



"Certainly" is a sentence adverb, and sentence adverbs can go before or after the subject, before or after auxiliary verbs, or after a comma at the end of a clause. Different sorts of adverbs obey different rules, and no one knows just what the rules are. You'll find a useful summary of some things that are known in McCawley's book The Syntactic Phenomena of English.


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