Question

Yes, she answered the question, and everybody was dumbfounded by her ______. Fill in the blanks using nominalisation of the underlined verb.
A. Answering
B. Answer
C. Answerable
D. Answerability

Answer 1

Hint: We know that nouns are words that name people, places, things etc. In linguistics, nominalisation is the process where nouns are created by modifying adjectives or verbs. For example, “interference” is a nominalization of “interfere”, “decision” is a nominalization of “decide” and “argument” is a nominalization of “argue”.

Complete answer:
1. The sentence given to us in the question expresses the fact that the subject (she) made everybody else awestruck by her action of answering. In other words, her ‘answer’ left everybody astounded. Thus, we have to choose the option which contains the noun form of the word ‘answered’.
2. Here we are going to check each option one by one so that we can detect the correct option containing the correct answer.
3. The first option ‘answering’ is the gerund or the present participle of the verb ‘answer’. That means this is a verb. Hence, this option is not correct as it is not a noun.
4. ‘Answer’ is the correct option, and it can be used in this sentence because it is the noun form, or the nominalised form of the verb ‘answered’. Moreover, it is grammatically correct in this scenario.
5. The third option, ‘answerable’ is an adjective. It means the responsibility or obligation to answer. Thus, this option is not correct.
6. Although option D, ‘Answerability’ is the noun form of the adjective 'answerable', this is not the meaning implied in the sentence. Hence, it is not the correct answer.

Hence the correct answer is option ‘D’

Note: Nouns are the words that name people, places, things etc. They can be of various types. They can be formed by adjectives and verbs by the process of Nominalisation. In Collins Dictionary, it is noted that the meaning of ‘dumbfounded’ is ‘extremely surprised by something’. Thus, we can understand that it is her ‘answerability’ which amazed everybody.