Question : The following sentence has been split into four segments. Identify the segment that contains a grammatical error.
The child was irritable / because she had not / soundly slept / the previous night.
Option 1: soundly slept
Option 2: The child was irritable
Option 3: the previous night
Option 4: because she had not
Correct Answer: soundly slept
Solution : The error lies in the first option.
Explanation:
The error lies in the placement of the adverb
soundly.
Adverbs, which modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, usually go next to the verb they modify. In this case,
soundly
describes how the child slept. However, in the original sentence, "soundly" is positioned between "not" and "slept" instead of directly before the verb "slept."
The correct placement of the adverb soundly would be before the verb slept to properly describe the action.
Therefore, the correct sentence would be, "The child was irritable because she had not slept soundly the previous night".