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
(1)One of the unresolved—and rather bitter—disputes in evolutionary biology is between the creeps and the jerks. The creeps(so d
(1)One of the unresolved—and rather bitter—disputes in evolutionary biology is between the creeps and the jerks. The creeps(so d
admin
2021-08-05
62
问题
(1)One of the unresolved—and rather bitter—disputes in evolutionary biology is between the creeps and the jerks. The creeps(so dubbed by me jerks)think mat evolutionary change is gradual. The jerks(so dubbed by me creeps)think it happens in sudden jumps that are separated by long periods of stasis.
(2)Probably, both are true. Work done a couple of years ago by Mark Pagel of Reading University, in England, suggests that about a fifth of evolutionary change happens jerkily at around me time new species form. The rest creeps in gradually over the millennia.
(3)Species, however, are not the only tilings that evolve. Languages do too. And in the current edition of Science, Dr. Pagel and his colleagues publish evidence that they do so in a way which looks intriguingly similar to what happens in species.
(4)There was already some historical evidence for this. The English of Geoffrey Chaucer(born in the 14th century), for example, is incomprehensible to modern laymen, whereas that of William Shakespeare(born in the 16th)is not only comprehensible but held by some to be a model. Dr. Pagel, however, wanted to examine the question systematically and to include languages with no literary history in his analysis.
(5)To do so he looked at three well-studied parts of the linguistic family tree: the Bantu languages of Africa, the Indo-European group from Eurasia and the Austronesians of the Pacific. In all three cases it is pretty clear how the branches connect up, even if it is not always obvious when particular splits occurred.
(6)Dr. Pagel did not, however, need to know that. He only needed to know the shape of the tree. That was because his hypothesis was that if linguistic evolution is jerky, the jerks will happen at the points where languages split—the equivalent of species splits in biological evolution. The way to test that is to track back along the branches leading from each existing language, and count the number of splits on each path before you get to the common ancestor of all.
(7)His hypothesis turned out to be correct. Languages are formed not, it seems, by a gradual drifting apart of two groups who no longer talk to each other, but by violent rupture. Around a third of the vocabulary differences between modern Bantu speakers arose this way, around a fifth of the differences between speakers of Indo-European languages, and around a tenth of the Austronesians. That compares with around a fifth for biological species.
(8)All this suggests that the formation of both languages and species is an active process. For species, adaptations to novel environments and the need to avoid crossbreeding with those on the other side of the split are both plausible hypotheses. For languages, the explanation may be a cultural rather than biological need to distinguish populations. As Noah Webster, the compiler of the first American dictionary, put it: "as an independent nation, our honor requires us to have a system of our own, in language as well as government." In other words, if you don’t speak proper, you aren’t one of us.
According to the passage, the formation of languages is for the _____.
选项
A、adaptation to the new environments
B、need to avoid crossbreeding
C、biological need to distinguish populations
D、cultural need to distinguish populations
答案
D
解析
最后一段提到,语言和物种的形成都是活跃的过程,而语言的形成是区分人群文化上的需要,故得出答案为D。A和B是物种形成的原因,C与文意不符,均排除。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/RPIK777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Forcountlesstimesinhistory,peoplehaveexploredtherelationshipbetweenscienceandclassics.Thepioneersoftheteachin
Withtheeffectsofglobalization,increasesintechnologyandthepaceoflifeinvademoreandmoreareasofeverydaylife,an
Asheappliedsunscreentohisyoungdaughter’sface,DaraO’Rourke,professorofenvironmentalandlabourpolicyattheUniver
IngmaBergman’slatestworkasascreenwriteris"Sunday’sChildren".SetinruralSwedenduringthelate1920s,thestorycen
IngmaBergman’slatestworkasascreenwriteris"Sunday’sChildren".SetinruralSwedenduringthelate1920s,thestorycen
Everyyeartelevisionstationsreceivehundredsofcomplaintsabouttheloudnessofadvertisements.However,federalrulesforb
(1)LarrySummersisright;thisyear’sFedsymposiuminJacksonHolewastriplydisappointing.Intheweeksbeforethegatherin
(1)Aperiodofclimatechangeabout130,000yearsagowouldhavemadewatertraveleasierbyloweringsealevelsandcreatingna
(1)Cheatinginsportisasoldassportitself.TheathletesofancientGreeceusedpotionstofortifythemselvesbeforeaconte
(1)Likemanycampuses,PurdueUniversityhassometraditionalhotspotsforromance—"TheOldPump,"wherecouplesusedtomeeta
随机试题
Whatisaninternationalturnkeyproject?
纤维素样坏死不见于
骨骼肌兴奋.收缩偶联中起关键作用的离子是
固位钉的类型分为()。
根据设计要求,对某结构中的角柱进行破坏性试验,以提供和验证设计数据,该过程支出的费用属于()。
某企业年初未分配利润借方余额为100万元,当年净利润为200万元,按10%提取法定盈余公积,按10%提取任意盈余公积。该企业可供投资者分配的利润为()万元。
国内安全保卫,是对()的侦查和防范工作。
下列哪一条指令在8086微处理器中是非法的?
(清华大学2008年试题)ThechangesingloballyaveragedtemperaturethathaveoccurredattheEarth’ssurfaceoverthepastcenturya
Somehousesaredesignedtobesmart.Othershavesmartdesigns.AnexampleofthesecondtypeofhousewonanAwardofExcellen
最新回复
(
0
)