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I'm currently writing a paper about a syntactic issue in English and I was curious how these sounded to everyone.

  1. Sam put carefully the coffee on the desk.
  2. Sam put the coffee carefully on the desk.
  3. Sam carefully put the coffee on the desk.
  4. Sam put the coffee on the desk carefully.

My opinion is that (1) sounds completely ungrammatical, (2) sounds awkward but is grammatical, and that (3) and (4) are both equally grammatical and not awkward at all.

Is the ability to interject adverbs between the direct and indirect objects like in (2) a common thing that happens?

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  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. Commented Jun 13, 2020 at 18:53
  • These are not ditransitive constructions. Though they do need the directional complement as well as the direct object. // (1) Agree / (2) Not awkward ... though / (3) Most idiomatic choice / (4) Best choice to emphasise the care taken (principle of end-focus), so a marked choice, not the choice if care isn't really being stressed). Commented Apr 19, 2024 at 11:22

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