Read the passage below:
In nineteenth-century historical linguistics, the Neogrammarian hypothesis asserted that sound laws operate without exception within a speech community. This deterministic view faced immediate challenges from apparent anomalies in Grimm’s Law, which described the systematic shift of Proto-Indo-European voiceless stops into Germanic voiceless fricatives. Specifically, certain voiceless stops unexpectedly transformed into voiced fricatives instead. Rather than viewing these irregularities as evidence of historical arbitrariness, Karl Verner hypothesized that the position of the ancestral Proto-Indo-European pitch accent governed these outcomes. By demonstrating that voicing occurred exclusively when the accent did not immediately precede the consonant in question, Verner showed that the apparent exceptions were in fact conditioned by a precise, previously unobserved phonetic environment. Consequently, his formulation not only salvaged the principle of sound law exceptionlessness but also established accentual reconstruction as a vital tool in historical phonology.
Based on the passage, which of the following statements correctly describe the rhetorical function of specific sentences or structural components within the author's overall argument? Select all that apply.
- The details regarding unexpected transformations into voiced fricatives serve to elaborate on the specific empirical anomaly that threatened the Neogrammarian hypothesis.Cevap
- BThe reference to Karl Verner’s hypothesis functions as a counterargument intended to refute the Neogrammarians' central claim concerning sound law consistency.
- The final sentence functions to articulate the broader theoretical and methodological significance of Verner's work for historical linguistics.Cevap
- DThe initial sentence introducing the Neogrammarian hypothesis is presented primarily to characterize an outmoded assumption that modern linguistics has rejected.
- EThe discussion of Proto-Indo-European pitch accent serves as evidence that phonetic shifts occur randomly across different speech communities.