Word order and emphasis with たくさん


Genki (second edition) gives the following example sentences using たくさん, but
doesn't explain any distinction regarding word order:

私は京都で {写真を **たくさん** / **たくさん** 写真を} 撮りました。 I took many pictures in Kyoto.

and

{野菜を **たくさん** / **たくさん** 野菜を} たべました。I ate a lot of vegetables.

How does the word order affect the meaning of the sentences? Here is my best
guess at understanding the distinction. For the first sentence, 写真を撮る
naturally imply each other, so there is probably less distinction, but
たくさん写真を撮る implies a large number of pictures, whereas たくさん撮る implies a lot of
time or effort put into the act of photography.

However, たくさん食べました implies that you ate a lot, whereas たくさん野菜を食べました means that
you ate a significant quantity of vegetables.

Thus, I take it たくさん can emphasize a lot of an action, or a large amount of a
subject. But I take it that since it is an adverb, is not really modifying the
subject, but the predicate clause.

Possibly related question:

[How do adverbs denoting amounts such as たくさん and ちょっと
work?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/28950/how-do-adverbs-
denoting-amounts-such-
as-%E3%81%9F%E3%81%8F%E3%81%95%E3%82%93-and-%E3%81%A1%E3%82%87%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A8-work/29007#29007)




The word order is not important in your examples. たくさん works as an adverb,
which means it modifies the following verb (撮りました/食べました) anyway, even though
there is another in-between object (noun). Both word orders are common and
natural, and both sentences literally say "took/ate a lot" rather than "many
pictures / a lot of vegetable."

You can say たくさん **の** 写真を撮りました, too. This たくさん **の** is an adjectival phrase,
and it must be placed before 写真. See: [たくさんの本を読んで versus
本をたくさん読んで](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/27483/5010)

