Question

Say which class the underlined adjective belongs to:
Every man has his duties.
(a)Adjective of Quality
(b)Indefinite Numeral Adjective
(c)Definite Numeral Adjective
(d)Distributive Numeral Adjective

Answer 1

Hint: Read the given sentence and understand the message being conveyed. Now point out how the underlined word helps in expressing the message, that is, its role in the sentence. Then go through the options and choose the most appropriate one.

Complete answer: Adjectives are those words that help in modifying or describing nouns. ‘Numeral adjectives’ are used to identify the number of nouns. There are three types of numeral adjectives-
(i)Definite numeral adjectives- They include ordinal and cardinal numbers. For example- They have decided to buy five books.
(ii)Indefinite numeral adjectives- They do not indicate the specific value of nouns. For example- I will have a few bites of your cake.
(iii)Distributive numeral adjectives- They are used to specify a singular number of nouns out of many. For example- Each boy will get a chance to run on the field.
In the given question- ‘Every’ is a distributive numeral adjective because it is followed by a singular verb, ‘has’ and singular noun, ‘man’.
Now, let’s examine the given options-
Option a- ‘Adjective of Quality’ is an incorrect option because an adjective of quality is used to indicate a specific quality about a noun.
Option b- ‘Indefinite Numeral Adjective’ is an incorrect option because indefinite numeral adjectives do not indicate an accurate value of nouns.
Option c- ‘Definite Numeral Adjective’ is an incorrect option because definite numeral adjectives are used to indicate numbers.
Option d- ‘Distributive Numeral Adjective’ is the correct option because ‘every’ is a distributive numeral adjective because it specifies a singular number of nouns out of many.
The correct answer is Option ‘d’.

Note: Keep in mind, a singular noun and verb always follow a distributive numeral adjective. For example- I have asked each child to write. Here, ‘each’ and ‘child’ are singular verb and noun.