Question

Pick out all the adjectives in the following sentence, and say to which class each belongs:
Several people were present at the time.
A) Several - Distributive numeral adjective
B) Several- Indefinite Numeral Adjective; present- adjective of quality
C) Present- Demonstrative adjective
D) Several- Demonstrative adjective; present - Distributive Numeral Adjective

Answer 1

Hint: Adjectives are words that tell about the quality or quantity of a given noun. There are 13 types of adjectives as Compound adjectives, Possessive adjectives, Demonstrative adjectives, Proper adjectives, Participial adjectives, Limiting adjectives, Descriptive adjectives etc.

Complete answer:
Let us understand more about the types of adjectives given in the option:
i) Distributive numeral adjective - These adjectives include each, every, either and neither. Numeral adjectives are also known as number adjectives. Distributive numeral adjectives are one of the 3 types of numeral adjectives.
ii) Indefinite numeral adjective - Indefinite numeral adjective is yet another type of numeral adjective that does not tell a specific number or amount but tells about the quantity. Words such as all, few, some, many etc. are some of these adjectives.
iii) Adjectives of quality - These are also known as descriptive adjectives as they describe the noun or noun phrase. They tell about size, shape, attribute or colour.
Demonstrative adjective - It is also known as a determiner as it determines the position of a noun or pronoun from a given point. It includes this, that, these, those.

In the given sentence the several and present are adjectives. Now, since several does not tell a specific number or amount but indicates a quantity, therefore, it is an indefinite numeral adjective. And since present tells us about the quality therefore it is an adjective of quality.

Thus the correct answer is option ‘B’.

Note: Adjectives are usually placed before the words they modify, however, in many cases when the verb is related to ‘senses’ then, they are placed after verbs. As per their placement around nouns we have two types of adjectives- 1)Attributive adjectives 2)Predicative adjectives.