A puzzle

Could you help me fit in a word, please? I am transcribing a recording. Two syllables are missing, the stress is on the first.

How many words does an educated adult native speaker of a language know – 10,000, 20,000? In fact it’s a very difficult thing to assess, but experiments are ...... ing that the number is probably somewhere between 50,00 and 250,000.

Thanks

suggesting

Two missing syllables and the stress is on the first... all the words I can think of violate one of those criteria: suggesting, indicating, showing, revealing, hinting, claiming... the thesaurus isn't helping me much here, either.

It could be two words: "experiments are now hinting..."

Without a copy of the recording or any other information, I don't think I have any other guesses.

- Kef

There are many words that fit the stress pattern: ordering, bargaining, balloting, gathering, etc but the only word I could find that more or less fits the meaning of the sentence is 'positing' I'm not sure whether an 'experiment' as opposed to a person can posit something. Maybe it is two words as Kef suggests.

Thank you all very much.
I can't present the recording here.
Never mind, it won't hurt if I put it as "suggesting".