首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
The latest clock to be invented is a "language clock" which helps us to determine the dates of certain occurrences. This clock r
The latest clock to be invented is a "language clock" which helps us to determine the dates of certain occurrences. This clock r
admin
2013-11-29
41
问题
The latest clock to be invented is a "language clock" which helps us to determine the dates of certain occurrences. This clock requires neither engines, springs, pendulums, nor electricity.
In 1950 some research workers in America discovered that languages change at a steady rate through the centuries. They organized their investigation in the following ways. First, they prepared a list of 200 things for which there are common words in every language. Then they compared these words in modern languages with the ancient languages from which the modem ones had developed. They found that for a certain proportion of the 200 things, the ancient words continued to be used, though written or pronounced differently. But in other cases the ancient words had been replaced by new words which had been introduced into the language.
After a thousand years, on the average, 81% of the old words (162 of the 200 words) were still in use. After 2000 years, on the average, 81% of these 162 words (or 66% of the original to tal of 200) remained. After 3000 years, 81% of these 131 words (or 53% of the original number) remained in use, and so on.
Next this group of research workers investigated situations where two different languages had developed separately and independently, from the same ancient language, (In modern times, of course, such situations are very unlikely to occur. Why?) They found that after 1,000 years, as be fore, each daughter language shared only 66% of the basic 200-word vocabulary. Each daughter language, as before, derived 81% of its 200 words from the original parent language. But (as you might expect) the words which they kept were not quite the same. The proportion of words actually shared by the daughter languages was therefore 81% of 81%, which is 66% of the original 200 words. After 2000 years they shared 66% of 66% of the words, i.e. 43% of the original vocabulary. And after 3000 years they shared only 29% of the original vocabulary.
A long time ago, some Eskimos, speaking the Eskimo language, left the mainland of Alaska and began to live in a group of islands (called the Aleutian Islands) at some instance from the coast. Recently, research workers compared the islander’s language with the modern Eskimo language. They found that the Aleutians and the Eskimos shared only 29% of the words, on the stand ard list. From this fact the investigators were able to calculate the date of the event referred to at the beginning of this paragraph.
American researchers found that the language clock could help ______.
选项
A、count the exact time by years
B、decide when the language came into being
C、make sure when the Aleuts left the mainland
D、determine how the time changed
答案
C
解析
由文章最后一句知,the investigators可以根据the language clock来calculate the date of the event,故选项C正确。
转载请注明原文地址:https://jikaoti.com/ti/cnOYFFFM
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
Atsometimearound2300BC,giveortakeacenturyortwo,alargenumberofthemajorcivilizationsoftheworldcollapsed,in
Thewaypeopleholdtothebeliefthatafun-filled,painfreelifeequalshappinessactuallyreducestheirchancesofeverattai
InZurich,aleadingcantonintheSwissConfederation,ithasbeenproposedtoteachoneforeignlanguage-English-inprimarysc
Thegreatquestionthatthispaperwill,butfeebly,attempttoansweris,Whatisthecreativeprocess?Thoughmuchtheory
Awisemanoncesaidthattheonlythingnecessaryforthetriumphofevilisforgoodmentodonothing.So,asapoliceoffice
Peoplewholiketowearredclothesaremorelikelytobetalkativeand______.
TributetoDr.CarloUrbani,Identifierof$ARS(1)Onthe29thofMarch,2003,theWorldHealthOrganizationdoctorCarloUr
Theprocessbymeansofwhichhumanbeingsarbitrarilymakecertainthingsstandforotherthingsmanybecalledthesymbolicpr
(81)TheagreementisoverseenbytheCommitteeonAgriculturewhichreviewsprogressintheimplementationofcommitments,and
Thegrowthofcell-phoneusersintheU.S.hastaperedofffromthebreakneckpaceof50%annuallyinthelate1990stowhatana
随机试题
在考生文件夹下,已有“tTest.txt”文本文件和“samp1.mdb”数据库文件,“samp1.mdb”中已建立表对象“tStud”和“tScore”。试按以下要求,完成表的各种操作:(1)将表“tScore”的“学号”和“课程号”两个字段设置为复合
我国未来中央与地方权力关系的基本趋势之一是【】
正式组织与非正式组织共生共存是组织的天然属性,从这两种组织的本质出发,使非正式组织和正式组织有机配合,就是使组织成员的心理和信息顺利沟通。()
所有权人有权向第三人追索原物的情况有()
单侧肺局限性哮鸣音可见于
下列土地中,不适宜进行城市建设的有()。
会员大会是会员制证券交易所的决策机构。()
音乐课程目标主要体现在情感、态度与价值观、过程与方法、知识与技能三个层面,其中音乐知识与技能主要包括三个方面的内容,下面的哪项内容不属于音乐知识与技能的范畴?()
美国科学家发现,雄性非洲慈鲷鱼能通过观察其他雄性成员在抢占地盘争斗的表现而评估对手的实力,在加入战斗时总是挑战那些最弱的对手。这是科学家首次发现鱼类具有这种推理能力。由此可以推知()。
营销近视症是指不适当地把主要精力放在产品上或技术上,而不是放在市场需要上.结果导致企业丧失市场.失去竞争力。根据上述定义,下列最符合营销近视症的一项是:
最新回复
(
0
)