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  3. The Roman language served as the first model for answering the question. Even to someone with no knowledge of Latin, the similar

The Roman language served as the first model for answering the question. Even to someone with no knowledge of Latin, the similar

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问题     The Roman language served as the first model for answering the question. Even to someone with no knowledge of Latin, the similarities among Roman languages would have made it natural to suggest that they were derived from a common ancestor. On the assumption that the shared characteristic of these languages came from the common ancestor, it would have been possible to reconstruct many of the characteristics of the original common language. In much the same way it became clear that the branches of the Indo-European family could be studied and a hypothetical family tree constructed , reading back to a common ancestor. This is the tree approach. The basic process represented by the tree model is one of divergence: when languages become isolated from one another, they differ increasingly, and dialects gradually become different until they become separate languages.
    Divergence is by no means the only possible tendency in language evolution. Johannes Schmidt introduced a "wave" model, in which linguistic changes were like waves, eventually leading to convergence; that is, growing similarity among languages that were initially quite different.
    Today, however, most linguists think primarily in terms of familytrees. It is necessary to construct some models of how language change might occur according to a process-based view. There are four main classes of models.
    The first is the process of initial colonization, by which an uninhabited territory becomes populated; its language naturally becomes that of the colonizers. Second are processes of divergence, such as the linguistic divergence arising from separation or isolation mentioned above in relation to early models of the Indo-European languages. The third group of models is based on processes of linguistic convergence. The wave model, formulated by Schmidt in the 1870’ s, is an example, but convergence methods have not generally found favor among linguists.
    Now, the slow and rather static operation of these processes is complicated by another factor: linguistic replacement. That factor provides the basis for a fourth class of models, in many areas of the world the languages initially spoken by the indigenous people have come to be replaced, fully or partially, by languages spoken by people coming from outside. Were it not for this large complicating factor, the world’ s linguistic history could be faithfully described by the initial distribution of Homo Sapiens, followed by the gradual workings of divergence and convergence. So linguistic replacement also has a key role to play in explaining the origins of the Indo-European languages.
Which of the following is TRUE according to the passage?
选项 A、Linguistic replacement can be ignored for the linguistic history to be fully described.
B、Linguistic replacement cannot be ignored in explaining where the Indo-European languages come from
C、Because of linguistic replacement, the other three models prove to be incorrect
D、Compared with the other models, linguistic replacement is the most important model
答案B
解析 最后一段结尾表明，linguistic replacement是解释the origins of the Indo—European languages的关键之一。因此，linguistic replacement的重要性不容忽视。但其他三种模式initial colonization，divergence和linguistic convergence同样很重要。
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