Self-study
Recent research shows that Support sound change (pronunciation shift) in a language is not gradual. ███ ██████ █████ ██████ █████████ ████ █████████ ███ █████████ ███████ ██ █████ ███████ █████ ███████ █████ ██ ████████████ █████ ████ █████████ ███████ ████ ██ ██████████ ████████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ███
Summary
The author concludes that the entire theory of sound change must be rejected. Her reasoning is that new sounds can emerge suddenly, and this observation contradicts what the “classical account” says about sound change.
Notable Assumptions
The author establishes why we should reject the classical account of sound change but then jumps to the conclusion that we must reject all of sound-change theory. She assumes that the classical account is in some way necessary or fundamental to sound-change theory as a whole.
16.
Which one of the following, ██ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ███████████
a
The data on █████ ███ █████████ ███████ ██ ████████████ ██████ ███ █████ ███ ███ █████ ██ ██ ███████████
Redundant. The premises already provide a much stronger reason than this for rejecting the classical account: its central tenet is mistaken.
b
The emergence of ███ ██████ ███████ ██ ██ ███████
Irrelevant. The premises already tell us everything we need to know about the emergence of new sounds: it can be sudden, which means the classical account is mistaken. What the premises don’t tell us is why all of sound-change theory must therefore be rejected. The randomness of new sounds doesn’t answer that question.
c
The meeting of ██████████████ █████████ ████████ ███ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ █████████████ █████
Irrelevant. The premises already tell us everything we need to about sound change itself: it can be sudden, which means the classical account is mistaken. What the premises don’t tell us is why all of sound-change theory must therefore be rejected. The unpredictability of sound change doesn’t answer that question.
d
All theories of █████ ██████ ████ ███████ ██ ███ █████████ ███████
We know the classical account is fundamentally mistaken and must be rejected. If the entirety of sound-change theory depends heavily on the mistaken classical account, then we have reason to believe that sound-change theory as a whole is likewise mistaken and should be discarded.
e
For most languages, ██████████ ███████ ██ █████ ███████ ██████ ███ ██████ ██ ████████████
Irrelevant. The argument gives no reason to believe that historical information has any bearing on sound change theory.