Language 1 - mube
Language 2 - mupe
Language 3 - mup
Based on the majority principle and most natural development principle, identify which of the following statements about the proto-form is/are CORRECT.
Proto-form Cognates Analysis
Analyzing cognates $mube$, $mupe$, and $mup$ to identify correct statements about their proto-form using linguistic principles.
Statement A: Voicing Change
Claim: Voiceless sounds become voiced between vowels. Therefore, *mube is not the likely proto-form.
- Principle: Common change: Voiceless consonant $\gt$ Voiced consonant between vowels (e.g., $p \gt b$).
- Evidence: Language 1 has 'b' (voiced) in $mube$; Language 2 has 'p' (voiceless) in $mupe$. Both consonants occur between 'u' and 'e'.
- Implication: If a proto-form had a voiceless consonant (like 'p') between vowels, it could evolve into a voiced consonant ('b') in a descendant (Language 1). This makes *mube (with 'b') unlikely as the proto-form, as the proto-form likely held the voiceless sound.
- Verdict: Correct.
Statement B: Final Vowel Elision
Claim: Final vowels are often deleted or elided. Therefore, *mupe is the likely proto-form.
- Principle: Common change: Final vowel deletion.
- Evidence: Language 3's form $mup$ lacks a final vowel, unlike $mube$ and $mupe$.
- Implication: The absence of a final vowel in $mup$ suggests the proto-form had one, which was later deleted. A proto-form like *mupe, retaining the final vowel, explains this observation naturally.
- Verdict: Correct.
Important Questions from Analytical Reasoning Drawing Reasonable Inferences from Passages
- “The necessary connection between cause and effect is the foundation of our inference from one to the other. The foundation of our inference is the transition arising from accustomed union.” – David Hume
Which one of the following claims is an accurate expression of Hume’s view on causal necessity? - Rohit is a 25-year old software engineer with a happy family and a stable job.
One day Rohit realises that this may all be an illusion – he could simply be a “brain in a vat” hooked up to electrodes which simulate an external reality. Whether or not he is actually a brain in a vat, his sensory experiences would be the same. Therefore, he does not know that he is a 25-year old software engineer with a happy family and a stable job.
Which one of the following philosophers is most closely associated with an argument of this kind? - Consider the sentence ‘there is no cat on the mat’. Which one of the following schools of classical Indian philosophy would regard this as tantamount to saying ‘this is a bare mat’?
- “When somebody utters the word ‘table’, we understand its meaning through a process of exclusion of everything else in the universe of discourse except ‘table’.”
Who among the following classical Indian philosophers could be credited with such reasoning? "I told you the truth," I say yet again, "Memory's truth, because memory has its own special kind. It selects, eliminates, alters, exaggerates, minimizes, glorifies, and vilifies also; but in the end it creates its own reality, its heterogeneous but usually coherent versions of events; and no sane human being ever trusts someone else's version more than his own."
What are the different ways in which ‘truth' can be understood from the passage?
