hi everybody my name is Alisha and today
I'm going to talk about the correct use of the word only let's take a look at a
few examples and see how moving the word only around in a sentence can change the
meaning of the sentence alright let's begin
first I want to define the word only and how I'm going to use it for this lesson
the word only for this lesson we're going to look at it as an adverb so an
adverb which means a single case or a single instance of something so there's
nothing different nothing more nothing less there's just this one thing this
one case of something but I want to focus for this lesson on the importance
of the position of only in a sentence so one key to keep in mind when you use the
word only and this is a point for native speakers and for non-native speakers we
need to place the word only as close as possible to the word or to the phrase
that it modifies and by modifies I mean only is connected to that phrase only is
changing that phrase in some way and when I say places that place it as close
as possible to that word I mean before that word it needs to come before the
word it's changing before the word it's modifying so I want to show a few
examples of how to do this but I'm going to move the word only around in the same
sentence so let's take a look I'll show you what I mean let's take a look at
this this sentence the base sentence here is Sara saw Michael at the park a
simple sentence so there are two people involved one action in this case the
past tense of soft and then a location at the park but I'm going to use the
word only here in a few different positions to show how much it can change
the meaning of the sentence depending on where we place it so the first example
here I have is only Sara saw Michael at the park here the word only comes before
Sara so that means that these two words are connected only is modifying Sara in
this case this sentence therefore means that
Sarah perhaps in a group of people or with
somebody else Sarah was the only person the single person who saw Michael at the
park maybe there were other people in the group she was with but she was the
single person the only person who saw Michael so only Sarah saw Michael at the
park that's the meaning with the placement of only before Sarah here
let's look at the next sentence Sarah only saw Michael at the park so here
only is coming before the word saw so in this case it's modifying this verb saw
this sentence therefore means that Sarah the only thing Sarah did her only action
was to see she only saw Michael at the park meaning no other actions happened
Sarah did not wave to Michael Sarah did not greet Michael Sarah did not throw
something at Michael whatever there was no other action the only action the
single action the sole action was that she saw Michael Sarah only saw Michael
at the part so the placement before the verb gives us this meaning let's look at
one more example Sarah saw only Michael at the park here only comes before
Michael in this case so the connection the modification is happening here Sarah
saw only Michael at the park means she did not see any other people at the park
so this could mean that there were no other people at the park or that maybe
she just she just didn't see anybody at the park so this sentence is a little
bit tricky it's a little hard to understand exactly what the writer wants
to say but it could mean that there were perhaps no people at the park no other
people at the park that Sarah saw so she went to the park she saw only Michael
there was only one person a single person it was Michael that Sarah saw so
placing only before in this case Michael gives us this meaning all right one more
sentence Sarah saw Michael only at the park so here the word only
coming before this phrase at the park this location in this case meaning that
there was a single place where Sarah saw Michael so Sarah did not see Michael at
the supermarket she did not see him at the store she did not see him at school
she saw him only at the park so there's a single location where she saw Michael
so these four sentences show us how much the meaning of a sentence can change
depending on our placement of the of the word only so it's important to keep in
mind another thing that I've done throughout this lesson a little bit is
I've emphasized with my voice the word that only is modifying but I want to
make one more point here in speech when actually speaking we can stress words
for emphasis and for clarity to make it very clear which word in the sentence we
want to emphasize which word we want only to modify so for example I can say
only Sarah saw Michael at the park or Sarah only saw Michael at the park so
with your voice you have the ability to emphasize certain words and certain
phrases in the sentences however in in writing it's not possible
to do this so correct placement of the word only is quite important so I wanted
to give you a few examples and it's just something to think about the next time
you use the word only so make sure that you're placing the word only as close as
possible to the word that it modifies so just something to keep in mind all right
so that's it for this lesson if you have any questions or comments please feel
free to let us know in the comment section below this video if you liked
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much for watching this lesson and I'll see you again soon