In historical linguistics, the 'structural borrowing threshold' hypothesis suggests that syntax is highly resilient to external influence, meaning that when two unrelated languages coexist, lexical borrowing (words) will occur long before syntactic borrowing (sentence structure). Linguist Dr. Aris Thorne investigated two genetically unrelated languages, Language A and Language B, which have coexisted in close proximity in the mountain regions of Papua New Guinea for several centuries. Thorne claimed that while the two languages have exchanged a vast amount of vocabulary, their core syntactic structures—specifically verb-object ordering and tense-aspect marking—remained completely unaffected by this long-term contact.
Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken Thorne's claim?
- ALanguage A and Language B both possess tense-aspect marking systems that do not exist in any other language families in the region, suggesting a common origin.
- BSpeakers of Language B show a significantly higher rate of lexical borrowing from Language A than speakers of Language A show from Language B.
- Historical linguistic reconstructions show that Language A's verb-object ordering was exclusively verb-final until a period of widespread bilingualism with speakers of Language B, after which Language A adopted the verb-initial structure characteristic of Language B.Cevap
- DLinguists have found that languages with verb-initial word orders are inherently more susceptible to grammatical changes over time than languages with verb-final word orders.