Grammar-Remained relatively the same, why not relatively remained the same ? I'm working on my writing essay for IELTS. (Academic Task1) I have a grammatical question. "It remained relatively the sam

Keiko

Grammar-Remained relatively the same, why not relatively remained the same ? I'm working on my writing essay for IELTS. (Academic Task1) I have a grammatical question. "It remained relatively the same" is correct, but NOT " It relatively remained the same"? It seems that both "It increased significantly" and " it significantly increased" are fine. I don't understand why. Could you explain please? It depends on a verb? If so, are there any examples that verb and adverb can't change the order? Thank you.

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الإجابات · 6

It has nothing to do with the verb. "Relatively" modifies the word after it, "the same." If you were to put it before the verb, it would modify the verb "remained," but that wouldn't make sense in English. I hope this helped.

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"relatively" is an adverb which modifies the following adjective phrase "the same". If you put "relatively" or any adverb in front of a verb then we automatically assume that the adverb is modifying the verb. If it modifies a later word, then this sounds strange and ambiguity is also possible. In the phrase "it increased significantly", there is no adjective and so no possible ambiguity which could arise from placing the adverb either side of the verb.

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