In the sentence 'She saw a lot of flats, but there weren't ___ that she liked,' the missing word functions as which part of speech?

• A. Determiner
• B. Pronoun
• C. Adverb
• D. Conjunction

Answer: (A)

The main idea being tested is how a word functions inside a noun phrase, especially after a negative verb. In this sentence, the missing word is part of the noun phrase that would modify a plural noun (flats). The job of the word here is to quantify that noun phrase and introduce it in a non-specific way, which is exactly what any does. It conveys “no flats at all” in effect: there weren’t any flats that she liked.

This word isn’t an adverb, which would modify a verb or adjective, and it isn’t a conjunction, which would link clauses. It also isn’t functioning as a pronoun here, because the form is tying into a noun phrase that is being described by the relative clause that follows (“that she liked”). So its role is to act as a determiner, marking the quantity of the noun phrase.