In some African languages, verbs not only encode the timefra

[shankar245]

In some African languages, verbs not only encode the timeframe of an event but also imply the origin of the speaker's knowledge, which may be direct observation, hearsay, or intuition, resulting in speakers of those languages who cannot state facts without an attribution to some source.


A) not only encode the timeframe of an event but also imply the origin of the speaker's knowledge, which may be direct observation, hearsay, or intuition, resulting in speakers of those languages who cannot state facts without an attribution to some source
B) not only encode the timeframe of an event but also the origin of the speaker's knowledge, direct observation, hearsay, or intuition; therefore, speakers of those languages cannot state a fact without some source of attribution

C) encode not only the timeframe of an event but also the origin of the speaker's knowledge, whether direct observation, hearsay, or intuition; as a result, speakers of those languages cannot state facts without attributing them to a source

D) do not encode the timeframe of an event; they also imply the origin of the speaker's knowledge -- whether direct observation, hearsay, or intuition -- resulting in the inability of those languages' speakers to state facts and not attributions to some source

E) not only encode the timeframe of an event but also imply the origin of the speaker's knowledge, direct observation, hearsay, or intuition; speakers of those languages, therefore, do not state facts without attributing them to sources.


The correct option is C.
But what I would like to clarify here is this :
The original question says this:
verbs not only encode the timeframe of an event but also imply the origin of the speaker's knowledge
i.e. Verbs do two things
1) encode time frame of an event
2) impy the origin of speakers knowledge.

But option C has removed that "imply" part , So is there not a meaning change.
Now it means that
verbs encode
1) timeframe of an event
2) origin of the speakers knowledge.

PLease explain.


thanks

[vikashee]

In some African languages, verbs not only encode the timeframe of an event but also imply the origin of the speaker's knowledge, which may be direct observation, hearsay, or intuition, resulting in speakers of those languages who cannot state facts without an attribution to some source.


A) not only the timeframe of an event but also imply the origin of the speaker's knowledge, which may be direct observation, hearsay, or intuition, resulting in speakers of those languages who cannot state facts without an attribution to some source ...
Verb doing something which is resulting in speakers of langauge ....ambiguity
B) not only encode the timeframe of an event but also the origin of the speaker's knowledge, direct observation, hearsay, or intuition; therefore, speakers of those languages cannot state a fact without some source of attribution ---- Wrong meaning ie. verbs imply something is changing to verb encode origin for me it would have been perfect if the word sources would not have been used , Looking up for resposnes in forum
C) encode not only the timeframe of an event but also the origin of the speaker's knowledge, whether direct observation, hearsay, or intuition; as a result, speakers of those languages cannot state facts without attributing them to a source

D) do not encode the timeframe of an event; they also imply the origin of the speaker's knowledge -- whether direct observation, hearsay, or intuition -- resulting in the inability of those languages' speakers to state facts and not attributions to some source --- Changing the meaning of sentence by using dont encode in place of not only encode, use of they .. pronoun reference error is it verb or languages

E) not only encode the timeframe of an event but also imply the origin of the speaker's knowledge, direct observation, hearsay, or intuition; speakers of those languages, therefore, do not state facts without attributing them to sources.....

[tim]

of course removal of "imply" changes the meaning, and that's wonderful! verbs cannot imply anything, so the meaning in A was WRONG and needed to be changed. there is nothing sacred about the meaning of answer choice A; please don't fall for the myth that you have to keep the meaning of answer choice A, because then you'll end up picking A for literally 100% of the SC problems - and get 80% of them wrong!

[duyng9989]

of course removal of "imply" changes the meaning, and that's wonderful! verbs cannot imply anything, so the meaning in A was WRONG and needed to be changed. there is nothing sacred about the meaning of answer choice A; please don't fall for the myth that you have to keep the meaning of answer choice A, because then you'll end up picking A for literally 100% of the SC problems - and get 80% of them wrong!

I am not convinced with the explanation.
What a paradox!. If A literally meaning can be changed. So why E is wrong?

How do we know observation, hearsay or intuition parts of speaker's knowledge or independent // items?

Additionally, how do we know the speakers of those languages "do not state facts" or "just cannot state facts"?

[jnelson0612]

of course removal of "imply" changes the meaning, and that's wonderful! verbs cannot imply anything, so the meaning in A was WRONG and needed to be changed. there is nothing sacred about the meaning of answer choice A; please don't fall for the myth that you have to keep the meaning of answer choice A, because then you'll end up picking A for literally 100% of the SC problems - and get 80% of them wrong!

I am not convinced with the explanation.
What a paradox!. If A literally meaning can be changed. So why E is wrong?

How do we know observation, hearsay or intuition parts of speaker's knowledge or independent // items?

Additionally, how do we know the speakers of those languages "do not state facts" or "just cannot state facts"?

E has the same problem that Tim was discussing. Here is the complete sentence using E:

In some African languages, verbs not only encode the timeframe of an event but also imply the origin of the speaker's knowledge, direct observation, hearsay, or intuition; speakers of those languages, therefore, do not state facts without attributing them to sources.

If we deconstruct this sentence using the parallelism marker "but also", it looks like this:
verbs not only 1) encode (the timeframe of an event)
BUT ALSO
2) imply the origin of a speakers knowledge.

So the sentence says that verbs not only encode but also imply. As Tim said, a verb cannot "imply" anything. That is a meaning issue that must be fixed and is corrected in answer C.

[kiranck007]

Hi,

I am not a native speaker, and I don't get the logic that verbs cannot imply.

Can instructors please explain me the logic.

[jlucero]

Hi,

I am not a native speaker, and I don't get the logic that verbs cannot imply.

Can instructors please explain me the logic.

The question is whether verbs imply an origin or encode an origin.

Imply = strongly suggest the truth
Encode = to put into code

The idea is that verbs, or words in general, don't suggest anything, but they do have a meaning or code that makes more sense in this context.

[winston.nilumol]

Hi,

The MGMAT explanation states that answer choice A is wrong because of the modifier "It is unclear exactly what is described by the modifier resulting.... Moreover, the modifier itself does not make sense: the phrasing resulting in speakers... seems to suggest that the existence of the speakers themselves".

After looking through the explanation I understand why a verb cannot imply something, however the modifier resulting in speakers WHO, seems perfectly fine to me.

I agree that answer choice C is more clear in its construction, but should I be eliminating A because verbs cannot imply instead of the reason listed by MGMAT? Thanks.

[RonPurewal]

"Resulting in speakers..." means that the speakers themselves "result" from these linguistic features.
The features of a language don't create human beings, so choice A is nonsense.

If the intended result is what the speakers can or can't do, then you'd need ...with the result that speakers can or can't do xxxx instead.

[lsyang1212]

of course removal of "imply" changes the meaning, and that's wonderful! verbs cannot imply anything, so the meaning in A was WRONG and needed to be changed. there is nothing sacred about the meaning of answer choice A; please don't fall for the myth that you have to keep the meaning of answer choice A, because then you'll end up picking A for literally 100% of the SC problems - and get 80% of them wrong!

I just came across this on my CAT #4, and I see why choice C is grammatically correct. But I disregarded this choice due to meaning alone. Yes, it changes the whole meaning of the sentence by deleting the word "imply", and I understand why "imply" is illogical here.

But aren't we always supposed to use the original sentence as a guide to decipher what the intended meaning should be? We can't read the author's mind when the sentence was originally written, so we need to use the original sentence to logically point us in the right direction.

For example, there was another CAT question that said the following:
"Studies of test scores show that watching television has a markedly positive effect on children whose parents speak English as a second language, as compared to those whose native language is English.

(A) to children whose parents do not
(B) with children whose parents are native English speakers

Answer choice A means to say that watching TV has a greater positive effect on the children whose parents speak English as a second language vs on the children whose parents DO NOT SPEAK ENGLISH (did the parents ever learn English at all?). Choice B means to compare the children whose parents learned English as a second language to children whose parents LEARNED ENGLISH AS A FIRST LANGUAGE.

Both are grammatically correct, but choice B is the OA. This is only because we are using the original sentence as an indicator of intended meaning.

I've always followed a somewhat informal rule of letting the original sentence be a tie breaker/indicator of meaning. Is this wrong? Or is this question about the African languages just a one off? I think I would miss this "African languages" type of question again if I saw it in the future.

Thanks.

[tim]

There is nothing sacred about answer choice A. When we ask you to read the original sentence to get what the author is trying to say, you could just as easily read the sentence with any of the other answer choices. This idea of "read[ing] the author's mind" is a straw man; you don't need to read anyone's mind when their thoughts (even if they are not expressed perfectly) are right there on the page! Any of the answer choices should be good enough to give you an idea of what the author was trying to say. Once you have that idea, you just need to make sure the author actually does say that. PLEASE keep in mind though that there is a difference between what the author is *trying* to say and what the author actually says.

[tiwari.ayush03]

Hi, I am new to this forum and this is my first post.
I rejected C for two reasons:
1. for the absence of "imply"- Though, now I have understood that its illogical over here.
2. "cannot state facts without attributing them to a source"- Here as I can see (Plural) Facts are being attributed to a (singular) source.

Also, I can now sense that other sentences were much worse, but still went for E at the end during my CAT, since I had rejected others through POE and thought E to be obviously true.

Please throw some light over such usages. Also, I came across many times in this forum where such usage is considered wrong.

[u.derry]

Hi, I have a question.

I thought "whether" should be used as conjunction and should introduce a complete sentence, so I could not pick up C from "Flagment" issue.

I understand choice E has changed the original meaning by not having the same parallel structure in A, but I still wonder how I can deal with this issue.

Thanks.