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A. The student leader explained why he had to leave angrily the panel discussion forum

B. The student leader explained why he had to leave the panel discussion forum angrily.

C. The student leader explained angrily why he had to leave the panel discussion forum

D. The student leader explained why he had angrily to leave the panel discussion forum

The given answer is C. Why other options are wrong?

Is there any specific position for the adverbs like angrily?

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  • E. The student leader angrily explained why he had to leave the panel discussion forum.
    – Imus
    Aug 3, 2021 at 7:04
  • Where did you get this question from? Is there any extra info about the question? Are there general statements at the start of the test like "choose the most fitting answer" (which implies others could still be correct technically but one answer is better than the others).
    – Imus
    Aug 3, 2021 at 7:06

2 Answers 2

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Adverb positioning is quite flexible, as adverbs can modify both verbs and adjectives: it depends what you want to emphasize.

For verbs, there are plenty of guides online: here is one from the Cambridge Dictionary. The adverb can be at the start, middle or end of a clause: the middle position is normally between subject and verb. Adverbs of manner (like angrily) normally go at the end.

In your sentence, it's complicated because there are two clauses. If he was angry as he explained, the adverb goes in the first clause, but if he was angry as he left the forum, the adverb should go in the second clause.

C is obviously right if he was angry as he explained, because it's at the end of the clause.

If he was angry as he left, that's complicated because he left angrily, yet "had to" is the main verb in the sentence, and so putting angrily at the end would modify had to, not angrily. I don't think that there is a good place to put this adverb in the second clause as it stands.

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Looking at Cambridge Dictionary that JavaLatte mentioned, we can answer your question about where advers like angrily (manner) should usually go:

They usually go in end position.

They sometimes go in mid position if the adverb is not the most important part of the clause or if the object is very long.

where

The end position of the clause is the last item in the clause:
Why do you always have to eat so fast?

and

The mid position is between the subject and the main verb:
Apples always taste best when you pick them straight off the tree.

Where there is more than one verb, mid position means after the first auxiliary verb or after a modal verb:
The government has occasionally been forced to change its mind. (after the first auxiliary verb)
You can definitely never predict what will happen. (after a modal verb)
We mightn’t ever have met. (after the modal verb and before the auxiliary verb)


Following this rule and considering how long the object of the sentence is I'd say it should go in the middle position between the subject the student leader and the main verb explained:

E. The student leader angrily explained why he had to leave the panel discussion forum.

Which isn't any of the available options.

There is still another possibility. In the previous example the angrily modifies the way the student leader explained something. It's also possible that the angrily should modify the way he left the forum. In this case we need to look at the subclause ** why he had to leave the panel discussion forum** and see where the adverb should go.

Here the object to leave the panel discussion forum is still pretty long so the adverb should go in the middle again. Given how we have two verbs have to and leave it should go in between:

F. The student leader explained why he had to angrily leave the panel discussion forum.

Which looks really close to answer D except that the to belongs with had here, not leave. We can see this by replacing have with should for example:

The student leader explained why he should angrily leave the panel discussion forum.

One last thing to point out is that the rule to put the adverb in the middle could also be taken as meaning the adverb isn't the most important part. So if we really want to emphasise the action being performed angrily we should put it in the end instead:

B. The student leader explained why he had to leave the panel discussion forum angrily.

Notice tho, that in this case the angrily modifies leaving the forum. The student leader could be explaining this afterwards in a calmly manner. For example if he wanted to make a statement there and for people to take that statement seriously he had to leave angrily.

The student leader calmly explained why he had to leave the panel discussion forum angrily.

If instead we want to enforce the meaning of explaining it angrily and it really is important that it is angrily we could go for option C instead:

C. The student leader explained angrily why he had to leave the panel discussion forum.

Without further context I see no reason why B shouldn't be the right answer tho.

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  • I think that you may have missed the first sentence of the page that I linked to: it reads "We can put adverbs and adverb phrases at the front, in the middle or at the end of a clause." Note that last word "clause"- it's important. In this sentence there are two clauses, the first of which is "The student leader explained": everything that follows is a separate clause. It is therefore perfectly reasonable to put this adverb of manner in its normal place at the end of the clause. "The student leader explained angrily.
    – JavaLatte
    Aug 3, 2021 at 12:19
  • @JavaLatte hmm good point. The remainder of the reasoning still holds tho that B could be considered correct as well but with a different meaning. There is a slight preference for C in that case making it "the most correct answer" given the lack of context.
    – Imus
    Aug 3, 2021 at 12:39

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