Directions : Read the passage given below and answer the questions by…
2019
Directions : Read the passage given below and answer the questions by selecting the correct/most appropriate options :
With more then 3,000 languages currently spoken, English undoubtedly is amongst the richest of all languages. The Oxford English Dictionary lists about half a million words of which only 2,00,000 are frequently used. This is because, the balance 3,00,000 words are technical and not found in ordinary dictionaries. The only language that can come near English is Chinese.
Apart from being the richest language, English also boasts of being one of the most widely spoken, second only to Mandarin Chinese. This remarkable achievement is only because of the one thing that we all love to do – copy ! ‘Siesta’ for example is of Spanish origin. ‘Sputnik’ as you must be aware of, has a Russian origin. ‘Restaurant’ is from France and ‘Super’ from Germany. Even before the birth of the ‘genius’ of ‘drama’, William Shakespeare, the words ‘genius’ and ‘drama’ were adapted from Greek. Now, you must be wondering if English has anything original about it. Well, find it out ! Did you ever try to find out how many different words of English we use in our daily life ? Try to guess and then read on. A modern novelist has a vocabulary of anywhere between ten to fifteen thousand words.
William Shakespeare used thirty thousand words and the only writer to come close to him was James Joyce in ‘Ulysses’. We normally have a vocabulary of about ten thousand words of which only five thousand are used in everyday conversation. This leads to a limited variety of words. This is because we repeat a lot of words. In conversation and in writing, it is ‘the’. (Try counting it in this article and you will have proof of it.)
Which part of speech is the underlined word in the following sentence ?
Did you ever try to find out ?
- A.
Adverb
- B.
Adjective
- C.
Pronoun
- D.
Verb
Attempted by 3 students.
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Concept
The part of speech a word belongs to depends on the grammatical function it performs in a sentence. An adverb modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb, typically indicating manner, time, place, degree, or frequency. An adjective modifies a noun or pronoun; a pronoun stands in for a noun already mentioned; and a verb expresses an action or a state of being.
Application
In the sentence "Did you ever try to find out ?", the underlined word "ever" attaches to the verb "try" and signals whether or how often the action of trying occurs — a time-and-frequency function. It does not describe a noun, so it cannot be an adjective; it does not stand in for a noun already mentioned, so it cannot be a pronoun; and it does not itself express an action, since "try" already serves as the clause's verb, so it cannot be a verb. Because it modifies the verb "try" by specifying time or frequency, "ever" functions as an adverb.
Cross-check
Substituting another well-known adverb of frequency, such as "always" or "never", in the same slot preserves the sentence's grammatical structure — "Did you always try to find out ?" — confirming that the slot is an adverb position. The same substitution test fails for adjectives, pronouns, or verbs, each of which would force a different sentence structure.
Adjective would need to modify a noun (for example, "the constant effort"), which is not how the underlined word is used here.
Pronoun would need to stand in for a noun already mentioned in the sentence, but the underlined word replaces no noun.
Verb would require the underlined word itself to express the action, but the clause's action is already expressed by "try".
The underlined word "ever" is therefore an adverb.