Unique among the Romance languages, Portuguese features days that are

Re "how we can define what the author wants to say in this question"

It's a judgement call

We need to apply some outside knowledge/logic in many GMAT questions

For example, see this sentence:
While watching TV, the dogs disturbed me.

The literal meaning is that the dogs were watching TV, and the dogs disturbed me.
Most of us would agree that is illogical, not what the writer meant.
Even though some dogs do watch TV (as some of my students have informed me

In the case of the question we are discussing, it makes less sense to speak of a language's mercantile heritage.
It makes more sense to speak of the mercantile heritage of the Portuguse nation or people.



(Having said all the above, let me point out that this is not an official question.
It's better to keep such detailed discussions for official questions made by the GMAC)

Posted from my mobile device

It's between B and E.

Both are grammatically correct but B doesn't have a logical meaning.

B suggests that the language has a strong mercantile heritage. The language does not have a strong mercantile heritage -- that is nonsensical. Rather, we're talking about the heritage of Portugal.

Answer is E.

I too have the same opinion.
Though I am more skeptical about C than D because of the missing than in the rather construction. We can always change the meaning of the sentence if grammatically correct choices are not there.
Need some insights here.
Thank you in advance.

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