3

I'm unsure about the position of the adverb officially in the following sentence:

The graduation year is when the master's dissertation will be added to your curriculum.

My gut tells me it's

The graduation year is when the master's dissertation will officially be added to your curriculum.

but I'm not sure why. I suppose the adverb should be placed after the first auxiliary verb (in case of multiple verbs)?

Improve this question
5
  • I'll let someone else answer, but I'll just say that it could be inserted in more than one place, to include at the beginning of the sentence: Officially, the graduation year is when the master's dissertation will be added to your curriculum.
    – J.R. ♦
    Aug 16, 2016 at 9:15
  • See english.stackexchange.com/a/333967/75136. I would classify "officially" as an adverb that modifies the whole sentence, and so it can go in the places listed in the linked post. Note crucially that it is different from "immediately", which modifies the verb and so must go next to it.
    – user21820
    Aug 16, 2016 at 9:23
  • Note that "will officially be added" and "will be officially added" are the most common, perhaps due to phonological effects (such as en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behaghel%27s_laws)!
    – user21820
    Aug 16, 2016 at 9:27
  • @user21820: Why not write up a slightly fuller answer and post it?
    – Nathan Tuggy
    Aug 16, 2016 at 10:22
  • @NathanTuggy: Because I'm not an expert at all; I'm just a native speaker. =) So I can't fully explain why "officially will be added" is rare and "will be added officially" sounds wrong even though it does not violate my grammatical criterion.
    – user21820
    Aug 16, 2016 at 10:34

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

As @J.R. points out in the comments, "officially" can be added in more than one place in your example sentence.

Officially, the graduation year is when the dissertation will be added to your curriculum.
The graduation year is when, officially, the dissertation will be added to your curriculum.
The graduation year is when the dissertation will officially be added to your curriculum.
The graduation year is when the dissertation will be officially added to your curriculum.
The graduation year is when the dissertation will be added officially to your curriculum.
The graduation year is when the dissertation will be added to your curriculum officially.

NB: "master's" has been removed for formatting considerations

All sentences have the same meaning, it is a matter of style.

Saying "officially added to your curriculum" may be redundant since once something is added to a curriculum it is usually "official".

The sense of you sentence can also be expressed as

A dissertation is added in your final year for fulfilment of the requirements.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .