Universalism was most prominently set forward by the linguists Joseph

Question

Universalism was most prominently set forward by the linguists Joseph Greenberg and Noam Chomsky. Chomsky, attempting to account for the celerity with which children grasp the subtle grammatical rules of their native tongues, argued that the best explanation is that the human brain has “modules” capable of generating an entire grammar on the basis of a small set of “generative rules.” We should therefore expect to find grammatical features shared by all human languages. Greenberg, on the other hand, painstakingly listed the grammatical features shared by multiple languages, positing that such commonalities must reflect innate cognitive biases. Greenberg’s data paid special attention to word order, yielding the hypothesis that some grammatical features of languages must be codependent. Chomsky’s view, in turn, predicts that as languages evolve and change, the grammatical features generated by the same rule should covary. A team led by Russell Gray, a New Zealand psychologist, recently released the results of a massive study that they claim casts doubt on these universalist predictions. Borrowing the technique of phylogenetic analysis from evolutionary biology, Gray and his colleagues reconstructed four family trees containing more than two thousand languages. They found that the co-dependencies in word-order change varied among families, suggesting that each family has evolved its own rules. Moreover, if co-dependencies were common to two families, there was evidence that they had separate origins within each family, thus yielding no evidence of family-invariant rules. Many universalists, however, were unimpressed: that languages vary widely is well-known. But given that some language is spoken by virtually all human beings, it would be strange if it did not reflect cognitive universals. It is the search for those universals, not the cataloguing of variations, that should take priority.    1 
 1. The passage most likely uses the word borrowing to indicate that

(A) Gray and his colleagues produced research that was not original.
(B) linguistics and evolutionary biology have many features in common.
(C) progress in linguistics cannot be carried out through the traditional methods of linguistics.
(D) research methods common to one branch of science can prove fruitful to another.
(E) facts about linguistics can shed light on our understanding of evolution.

2 
 2. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

(A) The thesis of universalism can only be supported through empirical studies.
(B) Some researchers believe that empirical research can undermine theoretical conclusions.
(C) Grammatical features in all languages co-vary.
(D) There is no evidence of the existence of family-invariant rules.
(E) Universalism is the only way to explain the speed at which children acquire language.

RC Butler 2023  -  Practice Two RC Passages Everyday.   
Passage # 151 Date: 17-May-2023
 This question is part of RC Butler 2023 .  Click here for Details

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ANBARASI · Answer

sir can i get the explanation of both the answers ?

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Official Explanation

1. The passage most likely uses the word borrowing to indicate that

Explanation

Choice (A)  is wrong, since there is no reason that one cannot produce original research by using techniques developed by someone else.

(B)  may be true, but this is not implied by the use of the word borrowing, since all you know is that one technique from evolutionary biology proved helpful to research in linguistics; this is compatible with the two areas having no common features.

(C)  is wrong, since the fact that methods from outside fields can help make progress in linguistics does not show that such progress cannot be made by other means.

(D)  is correct: research methods developed in evolutionary biology can lead to results in linguistics.

(E)  is the opposite of what the passage tells you.

Answer: D

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Official Explanation

2. Which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

Explanation

Choice (A)  is wrong, since the passage gives examples of non-empirical ways to support universalism.

(B)  is correct: Gray’s team claims their research casts doubt on Chomsky’s theoretical conclusions.

(C)  may or may not be true, but the passage only points to evidence of features that do not co-vary.

(D)  is wrong: you know that Gray’s team found no evidence of the existence of family-invariant rules, but this does not prove that there are no such rules.

(E)  is wrong: Chomsky argued that universalism is the  “best explanation”  for the speed at which children learn a language, but that does not mean that no other explanations are possible.

Answer: B

Niyantaaaaa · Answer

Can you explain why D in question number 1?

Sajjad1994 · Answer

Explained here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/universalism ... l#p3212063

Universalism was most prominently set forward by the linguists Joseph

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Universalism was most prominently set forward by the linguists Joseph

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