Teacher Discussion Forums

Hello,
New here but in need of some help! I was covering some present perfect tense stuff with my learners this week and I was asked why we say
"I have been ill recently" rather than
"I have been recently ill"?
I adopted a rabbit in the headlights stance and said 'because we just do'. Can anyone help me explain this properly?
Thanks
MK

I believe there is an unwritten rule (or is there?) that an adverb of time of the indefinite kind or indefinite adverb (e.g. recently, afterwards, first, next, just and etc) may appear (i) at the end or (ii) before the main verb but after the auxiliary of a declarative sentence. It shouldn’t be placed before the complement.

Therefore either “I have been ill recently” or “I have recently been ill” sounds fine to me. As you suggested you would rather not say “I have been recently ill.”

Would you say “ I was sick afterwards” with the indefinite at the end of the sentence or “I was afterwards sick” with the indefinite after the main verb?

Thanks Buddhaheart,
I was thinking also, is it fair to say (by way of explaination and to help with undertanding), that to say 'I have been ill' makes sense (but with no adverb of time) but to say 'I have been recently' doesn't make sense with out the 'ill' part?

Yes, “I have been ill” makes sense and obviously to say ““I have been ” w/o the “ill” part cannot be a complete sentence expressing a complete thought.

The present perfect “I have been ill” implies as one of its 2 uses that I am still under the weather. The present perfect “I have been ill recently” does not give precise indication when that illness started.

You could, instead of using an indefinite “recently” say “ I have been ill since ‘x’ weeks ago.”

You could also use a simple past/simple present compound sentence to convey the meaning, i.e. “I was ill ‘x’ weeks ago and I am still not okay.”

You could even use present perfect continuous to express precisely that you are not out of it as you speak hence “I have been feeling ill since the cold season starts.”

Hope this help.

Buddhaheart

1perriwinkle wrote:Hello,
New here but in need of some help! I was covering some present perfect tense stuff with my learners this week and I was asked why we say
"I have been ill recently" rather than
"I have been recently ill"?
I adopted a rabbit in the headlights stance and said 'because we just do'. Can anyone help me explain this properly?
Thanks
MK

In my variant my default would be to put the adjunct at the beginning of the statement, but neither

I have been ill recently
nor
I have been recently ill

sounds incorrect to my ears. Also "I have recently been ill" sounds fine too. I asked a few friends (AME speakers) and they seemed fine with both, although everyone's deafault seemed to be "Recently I've been ill" or "I've been ill recently"

Do both structures exist in anyone elses variant?

1perriwinkle wrote:
"I was thinking also, is it fair to say (by way of explaination and to help with undertanding), that to say 'I have been ill' makes sense (but with no adverb of time) but to say 'I have been recently' doesn't make sense with out the 'ill' part?"

I don't think I'm sure what you're saying here - could you elaborate on what you mean?

Jimbobob,
What is your variant?
'I have been recently ill' sounds incorrect to me.

Do these sentences with the same word order also sound correct to you?

'I have been lately early'
'I have been of late superb'

They don't sound correct to me.

The point is that 'recently' applies to the whole sentence, not to the single word 'ill'.

Placing it between the copula and the adjective would mean it was only modifying 'ill', that's to say we would have
+ [recently ill]
as opposed to
+ [ill]

zorro (3) wrote:Jimbobob,
What is your variant?
'I have been recently ill' sounds incorrect to me.

Do these sentences with the same word order also sound correct to you?

'I have been lately early'
'I have been of late superb'

They don't sound correct to me.

I would just term myself a North American English speaker.

the first example sentence sounds awkward to me, but the second sounds alright. How strange. I wonder if it's adjectives vs. adverbs or something. It seems that this form is widely unacceptable, but I'm fairly certain I've used it or encountered it w/out raising an eyebrow.

google tells me that at least some people are using it, however small the sample might be (about 20 results, some of which were grammar examples much like this question) I get about the same results for "Recently I have been ill". But "I have been ill recently gives 193, so it would appear to be the favorite.

Stephen Jones wrote: The point is that 'recently' applies to the whole sentence, not to the single word 'ill'.

Placing it between the copula and the adjective would mean it was only modifying 'ill', that's to say we would have
+ [recently ill]
as opposed to
+ [ill]

That makes sense