首页
登录
职称英语
A World Without Time or Number The Pirahci are an isolated
A World Without Time or Number The Pirahci are an isolated
游客
2023-10-17
31
管理
问题
A World Without Time or Number
The Pirahci are an isolated Amazonian tribe of hunter—gatherers who live deep in the Brazilian rainforest. The tribe has survived for centuries, although there are now only around 200 people left. The Piraha, who communicate mainly through hums and whistles, have fascinated ethnologists for years, mainly because they have almost no words for numbers. They use only three words to count: one, two, and many.
We know about the Piraha thanks to Dan Everett, a Professor of Phonetics, who spent seven years with the tribe in the 1970s and 1980s. Everett discovered a world without numbers, without time, without words for colours, without subordinate clauses and without a past tense. Their language, he found, was not just simple grammatically; it was restricted in its range of sounds and differed between the sexes. For the men, it has just eight consonants and three vowels; for the women, who have the smallest number of speech sounds in the world, to seven consonants and three vowels. To the untutored ear, the language sounds more like humming than speech. The Piraha can also whistle their language, which is how men communicate when hunting.
Their culture is similarly constrained. The Piraha can ’ t write, have little collective memory, and no concept of decorative art. In 1980 Everett tried to teach them to count: he explained basic arithmetic to an enthusiastic group keen to learn the skills needed to trade with other tribes. After eight months, not one could count to ten; even one plus one was beyond them. The experiment seemed to confirm Everett’ s theory: the tribe just couldn’ t conceive the concept of number.
The Piraha’ s inability to count is important because it seems to disprove Noam Chomsky’ s influential Theory of Universal Grammar, which holds that the human mind has a natural capacity for language, and that all languages share a basic rule structure, which enables children to understand abstract concepts such as number.
Questions 71—75
Complete the summary with words from the passage, changing the form where necessary with no more than three words for each blank.
The Piraha is a tribe who has lived in the Brazilian rainforest for hundreds of years. They communicate just:with 【R1】______. This has made many ethnologists interested in them. Their language is very special, not only because it is simple 【R2】______, but also because it is different 【R3】______the sexes. Men and women acquire different 【R4】______. Although a professor of phonetics has tried to teach them 【R5】______, he failed. This seems to disprove Noam Chomsky’ s influential Theory of Universal Grammar. [br] 【R1】
选项
答案
hums and whistles
解析
由第一段第三句“The Piraha,who communicate mainly through hums and whistles…”可知,此处应填hums and whistles。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3104821.html
相关试题推荐
Wepreferredtoputthemeetingoffratherthan______itwithoutadequateprepara
Wepreferredtoputthemeetingoffratherthan______itwithoutadequateprepara
Thenumberthatshouldcomenextintheseries64,16,4,1,1/4is______.40924
Finallyyou______tonumberthepostcardssothatyourfriendcouldputthemint
Eachnumbershownbelowfollowsacertainrule.Figureouttheruleandworkout
Wewouldliketoexpressour______alargenumberofbusinessesandbusinesspu
8195+1921Ifthesetwonumberstotal6879,whatdothetwonumbersbelowtotal?
Writeaboutthefollowingtopic.Inmanycountries,increasingnumbersofyoung
Whatnumbercomesnext?[img]2012q2/ct_eyyjscz2010a_eyyjsciq_0192_20122[/img]8.
When______inadownpourwithoutanumbrellaoraraincoat,mostpeoplewouldpic
随机试题
患者,男,40岁。恶寒发热2天,恶寒重,发热轻,肢体酸楚,苔薄白,脉浮紧。其主穴
化学课堂教学是课堂教学活动的基本组织单位。下列属于化学课堂教学基本构成要素的是(
治疗胁肋疼痛,嘈杂吞酸,呕吐口苦,舌红苔黄,脉弦数者,宜用的方剂是A:黄连解毒汤
出法核算GDP的时候,企业投资是构成总需求的一个重要部分,这里的投资包括固定资产
有人认为“巨额的国家预算赤字必然会导致巨额的国家贸易逆差”。如果这样的话,那么世
下列哪种肿瘤与遗传因素关系密切A.胃癌 B.肺癌 C.视网膜母细胞瘤 D.
以下DNA分子中哪条链以逆向平行顺序与3′-dpACGGTACp-5′碱基互补配
我国《商业银行法》规定,设立城市商业银行的注册资本最低限额为()亿元人民币。A.
(2011年)根据《水土保持法》,生产建设项目中的水土保持设施应当与主体工程同时
引起人体病变最重要的阶段A、尾蚴 B、童虫 C、成虫 D、虫卵 E、毛蚴
最新回复
(
0
)