Learn English – Position of the word ‘just’

adverb-positiongrammaticalitysyntactic-analysis

I was just watching a tv show where they used the following sentence:

He probably just hasn't gotten around to it yet

It was a reply to the question, “Why didn't he inform you about it?”

I want to know whether it is okay to place the word just right after he.

The sentence would then be:

He just probably hasn't gotten around to it yet

– which sounds more natural to my ear. If this is not possible, could someone explain why not?

Best Answer

It's possible, but the first rebdering sounds more natural to me. "just probably" hints of being barely probable, or emphasizing that it's only probable, not certain; whereas "just hasn't" hints at "it's simply because he hasn't gotten around to it, not that he intentionally neglected to do it." That's the more likely sense, so the more likely construction. On the other hand, one could put it near the end: "He probably hasn't gotten around to it JUST yet". in which case one infers that he plans to inform the other person eventually, just not yet.