46. 'Split' Auxiliaries.
Some writers, holding that there is the same objection to split compound verbs as to split infinitives, prefer to place any adverb or qualifying phrase not between the auxiliary and the other component, but before both. Provided that the adverb is then separated from the auxiliary, no harm is done: 'Evidently he was mistaken' is often as good as 'He was evidently mistaken', and suits all requirements of accentuation. But the placing of the adverb immediately before or after the auxiliary depends, according to established usage, upon the relative importance of the two components. When the main accent is to fall upon the second component, the normal place of the adverb is between the two; it is only when the same verb is repeated with a change in the tense or mood of the auxiliary, that the adverb should come first. 'He evidently was deceived' implies, or should imply, that the verb deceived has been used before, and that the point of the sentence depends upon the emphatic auxiliary: accordingly we should write 'The possibility of his being deceived had never occurred to me; but he evidently was deceived', but 'I relied implicitly on his knowledge of the facts; but he was evidently deceived'. In our first two examples below the adverb is rightly placed first to secure the emphasis on the auxiliary: in all the others the above principle of accentuation is violated. The same order of words is required by the copula with whatever kind of complement.
I recognize this truth, and always have recognized it.
Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so, as long as the world endures.–Burke.
They never are suffered to succeed in their opposition.–Burke.
She had received the homage of...and occasionally had deigned to breathe forth...–Beaconsfield.
He ordered breakfast as calmly as if he never had left his home.–Beaconsfield.
Miss Becky, whose sympathetic powers never had been called into action before.–Ferrier.
