首页
登录
职称英语
A World Without Time or Number The Piraha are an isolate
A World Without Time or Number The Piraha are an isolate
游客
2024-08-20
33
管理
问题
A World Without Time or Number
The Piraha 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 a maximum of three words from the passage.
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] 【R5】
选项
答案
to count
解析
(文章第三段第三句提到“In 1980 Everett tried to teach them to count.”由此可知,教授曾经教Piraha部落的人计算,但是失败了。)
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3727610.html
相关试题推荐
Determinewhatnumbershouldreplacethequestionmark:16424325612536?7通
AWorldWithoutTimeorNumberThePirahaareanisolate
Whichnumbershouldreplacetheguestionmark?[img]2019m9x/ct_eyyjsdz2019j_eyyj
Whatnumbershouldreplacethequestionmark?[img]2021m4s/ct_ve01004004z2020c_e
Whatnumbercontinuesthissequence?
Thenumbercodes3152,3455and5213standforthreeofthewordsMASH,MISSand
Determinewhatnumbershouldreplacethequestionmark:164243256
Whatnumbershouldreplacethequestionmarks?[img]2021m12x/ct_ve01004004z2021a
Whichnumbershouldreplacethequestionmark?[img]2021m12x/ct_ve01004004z2021b
Idonotthink______possibletomasteraforeignlanguagewithoutmuchmemorywo
随机试题
Writeonanoteofabout50-60wordsbasedonthefollowingsituation:Y
HowtoTakeNotesⅠ.ReasonsforNote-taking--(1)tomemory:s
Targetyesterday【C1】________WallStreetexpectationswhenit【C2】________a
目前银行大量推出创新型理财产品,而内控建设相对滞后,在一定程度上增加了因操作失误
小蓟饮子的药物组成中不包括A.藕节、木通B.当归、蒲黄C.大黄、车前子D.生地黄
根据《医疗用毒性药品管理办法》,关于医疗机构使用医疗用毒性药品的说法,正确的是A
40.当采用检无压-同期重合闸时,若线路的一端装设同期重合闸,则线路的另一端必须
新课程倡导的学生观是()。 ①学生是发展的人②学生是独特的人③学生是单纯抽象
(2020年真题)甲公司2019年度存货周转期为85天,应收账款周转期为65天,
《精神卫生法》规定承担精神障碍患者再次诊断的精神科执业医师人数是( )。A.5
最新回复
(
0
)