Adverb order: 'has largely been' or 'has been largely' [duplicate]

Solution 1:

Both variations you give are grammatical, but their meanings are slightly different.

In both cases, you have a complex verbal form, a perfect passive, which consists of three verbal forms:

1. A finite auxiliary have (here in the third singular present, has), marking the perfect;
2. A past participle of the auxiliary be, marking the passive in conjunction with –
3. A past participle of the main verb (driven and shaped, respectively).

(A similar structure has a plain adjective in 3., in which case the sense is not passive, but simply describes with an adjective a state or situation that has been ongoing up until now.)

The adverb largely (meaning ‘most of the time’ or ‘in most cases’ here) modifies different things depending on where it is put. If placed between 1. and 2., it modifies the perfective, temporal aspect of the verb (basically, it modifies 1. and 2. taken together); if placed between 2. and 3., it modifies 3. only.

In plainer terms:

Mobile technology progress has largely been consumer-driven rather than enterprise-driven.
Mobile technology progress has largely been shaped by consumers.

These sentences mean that mobile technology progress has been driven by consumers most of the time, but sometimes by enterprises, and that it has been shaped by consumers most of the time, but not all the time. It is the aspect of has been that is being modified: sometimes this, sometimes that.

Mobile technology progress has been largely consumer-driven rather than enterprise-driven.
Mobile technology progress has been largely shaped by consumers.

These sentence state that the progress-driving and progress-shaping have been single entities (not sometimes-this-sometimes-that), and within those entities, consumers have made up a larger portion than enterprises.

It is difficult to verbalise this latter distinction, so I will instead provide a clearer example:

Imagine a substitute teacher who has taught someone else’s class for a month. After that month is up, the regular teacher asks the substitute teacher how the children in the class have behaved during that time.

The children have largely been well-behaved.

– would indicate that most of the time, all the children were well-behaved; though of course some of the time, they weren’t.

The children have been largely well-behaved.

– would indicate that the majority of the children’s behaviour was in the category of ‘well-behaved’. This might mean that most of the children were well-behaved all the time, while a few of them were naughty nearly all the time; but if you take the entire amount of behaviour together as one, ‘well-behaved’ is the majority of it.

Note also that in many, many cases, this slight nuance is almost impossible to describe, since either version ends up meaning the same practical thing. And even when there is an actual difference, it is so small that it is rarely significant or really matters.