Questions & Answers about Ich habe kaum geschlafen.
Why are we looking at kaum in a lesson about the position of nicht?
Because words that express a negative idea, like kaum (hardly), nie (never), and nichts (nothing), follow the exact same placement rules as nicht. Here, kaum limits the entire action of sleeping, so it goes near the end of the sentence, right before the past participle geschlafen.
Why isn't it Ich kaum habe geschlafen, similar to the English word order?
In German, the conjugated verb (here, the helper verb habe) must stay firmly in the second position of a regular main clause. Adverbs like kaum cannot push the verb out of position two, so they have to go later in the sentence.
Can I emphasize kaum by putting it at the beginning of the sentence?
Yes, you can say Kaum habe ich geschlafen. If you move kaum to the first position for emphasis, the conjugated verb habe still has to stay in position two. This forces the subject ich into the third position, right after the verb.
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