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  3. When one looks back upon the 1500 years that are the life span of the English language, he should be able to notice a number of

When one looks back upon the 1500 years that are the life span of the English language, he should be able to notice a number of

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问题     When one looks back upon the 1500 years that are the life span of the English language, he should be able to notice a number of significant truths. The history of our language has always been a history of constant change -- at times a slow, almost unnoticeable change, at other times a violent collision between two languages. Our language has always been a living growing organism, it has never been static.
    Another significant truth that emerges from such a study is that language at all times has been the possession not of one class or group but of many. At one extreme it has been the property of the common, ignorant folk, who have used it in the daily business of their living, much as they have used their animals or the kitchen pots and pans. At the other extreme it has been the treasure of those who have respected it as an instrument and a sign of civilization, and who have struggled by writing it down to give it some permanence, order, dignity, and if possible, a little beauty.
    As we consider our changing language, we should note here two developments that are of special and immediate importance to us.
    One is that since the time of the Anglo-Saxons(盎格鲁撒克逊人)there has been an almost complete reversal of the different devices for showing the relationship of words in a sentence. Anglo-Saxon(old English)was a language of many inflections. Modern English has few inflections. We must now depend largely on word order and function words to convey the meanings that the older language did by means of changes in the forms of words. Function words, you should understand, are words such as prepositions, conjunctions, and a few others that are used primarily to show relationships among other words. A few inflections, however, have survived. And when some word inflections come into conflict with word order, there may be trouble for the users of the language, as we shall see later when we turn our attention to such matters as WHO or WHOM and ME or I.
    The second fact we must consider is that as language itself changes, our attitudes toward language forms change also. The 18th century, for example, produced from various sources a tendency to fix the language into patterns not always set in and grew, until at the present time there is a strong tendency to restudy and re-evaluate language practices in terms of the ways in which people speak and write.
In the past 100 years of development, the English language ______.
选项 A、has been changing violently all the time
B、has been static all the time
C、has been changing slightly sometimes
D、has been static sometimes
答案C
解析 根据题干可知是关于英语语言的发展特点的，根据关键信息1500 years可迅速定位到文章的第一段。从第一段的第二句可知，英语语言发展过程中伴随着持续的变化constant change，有时缓慢细微一些，有时候剧烈一些，由此可判断C)“有时变化缓慢”正确。本题的四个选项貌似相同，差别比较微妙，解题的关键就是要准确地理解文章第一段第二句和第三句关于英语语言发展的特点：持续变化，有时明显、有时微小，但总是在变化中，没有停顿的时候，由此排除A)、B)和D)。
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