Position of "at least"

Please at least inform us of the present situation. OK
Please inform us of at least the present situation. NO
Please inform us of the present situation at least. NO
At least please inform us of the present situation. OK.

Clive wrote:

Please at least inform us of the present situation. Please inform us of at least the present situation. Please inform us of the present situation at least. At least please inform us of the present situation. I wouldn't say any of these are incorrect, although #2 would be less common..

Hi Clive

I am slightly surprised at your reply. I'm not saying I disagree; what surprises me is the fact that you don't say anything about the meaning of the sentences. They don't all mean the same thing to me but I'm not sure whether this is due to the influence of Finnish word order on my thinking or not.

As I understand the first sentence, The minimum that is requested is information about the present situation. In the second sentence the minimum is information about the present situation. (Information about other things would probably also be appreciated.) The third sentence has the same meaning to me. In the last sentence at least seems to modify the entire clause.

Please correct me if my thinking is wrong and there are no such differences. In that case it's impossible to convey such nuances in English  -  at least it's impossible using the expression at least.

Cheers
CB

Clive wrote:

As a general comment, and I'm not talking about this specific thread, I find that many sentences queried on the Forum are correct but would never be said, or only be said in contexts and circumstances that are odd to say the least. Such things commonly require a lot of effort and words to explain, and I often feel that the explanation is liable to do nothing but confuse the learner and muddy their clear understanding of the topic. I'd welcome any thoughts you have on how to handle matters like these.

Hi Clive

Thank you for your reply. I don't think I am able to give you any advice on this. Your reasoning and logic are impeccable with regard to answering questions and I agree with your answering policy completely. Sometimes my first impression is "that's completely wrong" when I read a question about a sentence but then I may realize that a will or a would in the sentence can actually be understood completely differently from what I first thought. This must at least in part be due to English not being my native language and therefore I am  not always instantly able to conceive of all the possible interpretations of all words and structures.

Another reason is the very fact that auxiliaries, infinitives and other verb forms are sometimes used in such a messy way that I occasionally agree with a friend of mine who says that in English anything can mean anything. Of course it's not true! I was prompted to ask you about at least because I realized that I had never read anything about its position and began to doubt my reasoning as to where to place it. It seems indeed to occupy exactly the same position in English as in my mother tongue, which should make my life a little easier in future.

Cheers
CB