How to use “ONLY” correctly? - Basic English Grammar

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

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much for watching this lesson and I'll see you again soon