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Updated on: 12 Sep 2020, 06:50
Originally posted by Lucky2783 on 11 Apr 2015, 04:35.
Last edited by Sajjad1994 on 12 Sep 2020, 06:50, edited 4 times in total.
Last edited by Sajjad1994 on 12 Sep 2020, 06:50, edited 4 times in total.
Updated - Complete topic (953).
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For many years, historians thought that the development of capitalism had not faced serious challenges in the United States. Writing in the early twentieth century, progressive historians sympathized with the battles waged by farmers and small producers against large capitalists in the late nineteenth century Opera singers and dry air don't get along. In fact, the best professional singers require humid settings to help them achieve the right pitch. “When your vocal cords are really dry, they're a little less elastic,” says Caleb Everett, an anthropological linguist at the University of Miami. As a result, singers experience tiny variations in pitch, called jitter, as well as wavering volume—both of which contribute to rougher refrains.
If the amount of moisture in the air influences musical pitch, Everett wondered, has that translated into the development of fewer tonal languages in arid locations? Tonal languages, such as Mandarin Chinese and Cherokee, rely on variations in pitch to differentiate meaning: the same syllable spoken at a higher pitch can specify a different word if spoken at a lower pitch or in a rising or falling tone.
In a survey of more than 3,700 languages, Everett and his collaborators found that those with complex tones do indeed occur less frequently in dry areas than they do in humid ones, even after accounting for the clustering of related languages. For instance, more than half of the hundreds of languages spoken in tropical sub-Saharan locations feature complex tones, whereas none of the two dozen languages in the Sahara do. Overall, only one in 30 complex tonal languages flourished in dry areas; one in three nontonal languages cropped up in those same regions. The results appeared in February in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
Those conclusions run counter to a traditional linguistic view that the structure of language is independent of its environment, says Robert Ladd, a linguistics researcher at the University of Edinburgh. To bolster the Miami group's findings, researchers in the field will need to prove that tonal languages require a precise control of pitch.
Along those lines, Everett and his team will next measure experimentally how well people voice complex tones in arid air. Although the evolution of tonal languages over the course of centuries cannot be observed, witnessing the physiological effect under controlled conditions could really make the hypothesis sing.
If the amount of moisture in the air influences musical pitch, Everett wondered, has that translated into the development of fewer tonal languages in arid locations? Tonal languages, such as Mandarin Chinese and Cherokee, rely on variations in pitch to differentiate meaning: the same syllable spoken at a higher pitch can specify a different word if spoken at a lower pitch or in a rising or falling tone.
In a survey of more than 3,700 languages, Everett and his collaborators found that those with complex tones do indeed occur less frequently in dry areas than they do in humid ones, even after accounting for the clustering of related languages. For instance, more than half of the hundreds of languages spoken in tropical sub-Saharan locations feature complex tones, whereas none of the two dozen languages in the Sahara do. Overall, only one in 30 complex tonal languages flourished in dry areas; one in three nontonal languages cropped up in those same regions. The results appeared in February in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
Those conclusions run counter to a traditional linguistic view that the structure of language is independent of its environment, says Robert Ladd, a linguistics researcher at the University of Edinburgh. To bolster the Miami group's findings, researchers in the field will need to prove that tonal languages require a precise control of pitch.
Along those lines, Everett and his team will next measure experimentally how well people voice complex tones in arid air. Although the evolution of tonal languages over the course of centuries cannot be observed, witnessing the physiological effect under controlled conditions could really make the hypothesis sing.
1) The author's tone in the passage is
a) affirmative
b) skeptic
c) indecisive
d) ignorant
e) insisting
a) affirmative
b) skeptic
c) indecisive
d) ignorant
e) insisting
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11 Apr 2015, 05:30
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Dear Lucky,
I am going to spend a couple of minutes to clarify once again the way to post on the board
According to the rules rc-forum-rules-must-read-155874.html you must
1) post ALL the questions along the passage and NOT only one
2) provide the OA in spoiler /[spoiler=]OA[spoiler]
3) the passage being crafted in a good manner
Back to your question
you can tackle the tone of the passage thinking, in a more general way, that it is or positive or negative on the GMAT. rarely it is neutral
Moreover, you can infer it from the whole passage. No matter what.
Hope this helps
regards
I am going to spend a couple of minutes to clarify once again the way to post on the board
According to the rules rc-forum-rules-must-read-155874.html you must
1) post ALL the questions along the passage and NOT only one
2) provide the OA in spoiler /[spoiler=]OA[spoiler]
3) the passage being crafted in a good manner
Back to your question
you can tackle the tone of the passage thinking, in a more general way, that it is or positive or negative on the GMAT. rarely it is neutral
Moreover, you can infer it from the whole passage. No matter what.
Hope this helps
regards
sushil41
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09 Jan 2018, 03:15
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Answer should be E. As You can get a notion from the last passage that the author wants the linguist and his team to find the ways to prove the above hypothesis to be true. In all other paragraphs, it is the linguist and the researchers who are putting forward their points, not the author himself.
