Learn English – Place of an adverb in the passive present perfect progressive

adverbsword-order

I was wondering where an adverb should (or could) be placed in the passive present perfect progressive in English.

I have been being carefully tickled.

OR

I have been carefully being tickled.

OR

I have carefully been being tickled.

An alternative position of an adverb is after the lexical verb, but I do not think that it is the only possibility.

I have been being tickled carefully.

Do all progressive tenses share this place for the adverb?

Please provided references and/or sources if possible.

Best Answer

Note that there are a few instances of "been being carefully" in Google Books, but no relevant occurrences of those three words in any other sequence.

Personally I have no real preference for carefully being placed before or after the verb - but in this context, "the verb" means the word "tickled", not the "helper" verb forms "been" and "being". Thus,

I have been being carefully tickled.
I have been being tickled carefully.

...are equally valid, and mean exactly the same thing. Here are a couple of real-world instances...

...has been being researched systematically...
...have been being carefully researched...

In short, put your adverb right next to (either immediately before or after) the "operative verb". Just don't splice it in between any pair of "auxiliary" verbs you happen to be using.

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