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  3. In English, the word for the sniffing appendage on our face is nose. Japanese also happens to use the consonant n in this word (

In English, the word for the sniffing appendage on our face is nose. Japanese also happens to use the consonant n in this word (

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问题    In English, the word for the sniffing appendage on our face is nose. Japanese also happens to use the consonant n in this word (hand) and so does Turkish (burun). Since the 1900s, linguists have argued that these associations between speech sounds and meanings are purely arbitrary. Yet a new study calls this into question.
   Together with his colleagues, Damian Blasi of the University of Zurich analyzed lists of words from 4,298 different languages. In doing so, they discovered that unrelated languages often use the same sounds to refer to the same meaning. 【R1】__________
   The idea is not new. Previous studies have suggested that sound-meaning associations may not be entirely arbitrary, but these studies were limited by small sample sizes and highly restricted lists of words. 【R2】__________
   The method of the study involved two key parts. The first step was to estimate how frequently the word for a given concept uses a particular sound by assigning binary values of 0 or 1 to associations in individual languages. 【R3】__________Aggregating these numbers across the thousands of languages studied yields the overall probability that any word for red in any language will contain r—in this case, 0.35. 【R4】__________
   So how do we know that the association between red and r is special? To address this question, the authors performed a second step, this time calculating the probability that any randomly selected word uses r. By comparing the two probabilities, they were able to show that across languages, r is more than twice as likely to occur in words for red than in other words. With this method, the researchers reported 74 robust associations between word sounds and meanings, including l and leaf, and n and nose.
   The study raises some big-picture questions. Why, for example, should it be the case that culturally and geographically diverse groups of humans link the same sounds with the same meanings?
   【R5】__________
   So the answer to this question remains elusive. Although it’s easy to imagine that the n-sound in nose reflects nasality, this is a guess and no such relationship can explain other associations.
   Another tough question concerns the relatively small number of associations. Why do a handful of words like red, small and leaf form non-arbitrary links to their speech sounds, while thousands of other words—such as soup and dog—do not? Simon Kirby, professor at the Center for Language Evolution at the University of Edinburgh, thinks this may be the heart of the matter. "The puzzle is really why this is such a marginal phenomenon," says Kirby.
   [A] Blasi and colleagues used statistical analyses to rule out the possibility that people happened to borrow words like red from neighboring languages, or that such words descended from the same ancient proto-language.
   [B] For example in English, the word for red uses the consonant r and therefore is scored a 1, while in Japanese, aka does not contain r and therefore receives a 0.
   [C] Blasi and colleagues have shown that non-arbitrary associations are possible—the deeper puzzle about language is why it is nevertheless largely arbitrary.
   [D] For example, the consonant r is often used in words for red—think of French rouge, Spanish rojo, and German rot, but also Turkish krmz, Hungarian piros, and Maori kura.
   [E] On its own, however, this calculation is not enough. There are thousands of words that use r—road, mural, and waiter, to name only a few English examples.
   [F] Different from them, Blasi’s study—published this month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA—is notable because it included almost two thirds of the world’s languages and used lists of diverse words, including pronouns, body parts, verbs, natural phenomena, and adjectives-such as we, tongue, drink, star and small, respectively.
   [G] One limitation of the study is the relatively small number of meanings that were included in the analysis, points out Eric Holman, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
【R5】
选项
答案A
解析 第六段讲布拉西的研究引出一些更大、更宏观的问题，空格前列举出了其中一个问题：为什么不同文化、不同地域的人群会使用相同发音表达相同含义?推测空格处应该是对这个问题的回答。但空格后指出这个问题的答案未明，So提示了空格处可能是关于答案未明的原因。A列出了两种可能性，可与空格前所问的语言现象形成因果关系，而布拉西和他同事排除了这两种可能性，因此问题的答案还有待深究，这与空格后说的So…this question remains elusive一致。A与空格前后的内容语义相符，衔接自然，故为答案。
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