what differences will be made by changing position of the focusing adverb "only"?

[rezaaa]

what differences will be made by changing position of the focusing adverb "only"?

It exists for only a fragment of a second.
It only exists for a fragment of a second.
It exists only for a fragment of a second.

 

[jutfrank]

Re: what differences will be made by changing position of the focusing adverb "only"?

Nothing that can be explained easily without context. As you haven't given any context, I'd suggest you use the first one. The word only should be directly before the phrase it modifies, which in this case is a fraction of a second.

Did you make up these sentences yourself?

 

[Rover_KE]

Re: what differences will be made by changing position of the focusing adverb "only"?

Change 'fragment' to 'fraction' and they mean the same to me.

 

[rezaaa]

Re: what differences will be made by changing position of the focusing adverb "only"?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/features/lingohack/ep-210331
I made up the two latter sentences.

 

[Rover_KE]

Re: what differences will be made by changing position of the focusing adverb "only"?

That's a very long article you linked to. What are we supposed to be looking for?

 

[rezaaa]

Re: what differences will be made by changing position of the focusing adverb "only"?

I was asked to reference the source of sentence.

 

[Rover_KE]

Re: what differences will be made by changing position of the focusing adverb "only"?

Fair enough, but we have a lot of searching to do to find the context.