首页
登录
职称英语
The latest clock to be invented is a "language clock" which helps us to dete
The latest clock to be invented is a "language clock" which helps us to dete
游客
2025-04-16
39
管理
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 But in other cases the ancient words had been replaced by new words which had been introduced into the language.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. [br] 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://www.tihaiku.com/zcyy/4040413.html
相关试题推荐
InMicrosoft’slatestattempttoreachouttobloggers,thecompanyrecently
InMicrosoft’slatestattempttoreachouttobloggers,thecompanyrecently
InMicrosoft’slatestattempttoreachouttobloggers,thecompanyrecently
InMicrosoft’slatestattempttoreachouttobloggers,thecompanyrecently
InMicrosoft’slatestattempttoreachouttobloggers,thecompanyrecently
InMicrosoft’slatestattempttoreachouttobloggers,thecompanyrecently
Thelatestclocktobeinventedisa"languageclock"whichhelpsustodete
Thelatestclocktobeinventedisa"languageclock"whichhelpsustodete
Thelatestclocktobeinventedisa"languageclock"whichhelpsustodete
Ithinkyoucantakea(n)____languagecoursetoimproveyourEnglish.A、intermedi
随机试题
SevenWaystoCreateaHappyHouseholdEveryfamilyisd
TheAmericanbabyboommadeunconvincingU.S.advicetopoorcountriesthat
某设备工程项目,业主委托某设备监理公司承担该设备工程的招标工作和全过程监理任务。
美术教材应当具有( ),以适应不同地区的教师和学生的需要。A.地方性限制 B
下列各项,不属应与崩漏鉴别的疾病是A.月经先期 B.月经过多 C.经间期出血
护士应该获得的信息是:静脉滴注给予氯化钾,其浓度不可超过A:0.1%~0.2%
左边给定的是削掉一个角的纸盒,下列哪一项不是有它展开而成? A.见上图
下列观念中,与“认知结构”含义基本相同的有A.赫尔巴特的“统觉团” B.托尔曼
A.抽搐、进行性加重 B.出血、凝血时间延长 C.恶心、呕吐、口内有金属味
根据支付结算法律制度的规定,关于存款人基本存款账户的下列表述中,不正确的是()
最新回复
(
0
)