UGC-NET (NTA) Linguistics, February-2023

The Neo-grammarian Hypothesıs (late 19th century) was a German-based school of thought, suggesting that phonetic laws have no exceptions. It was followed by Sturtevant's Paradox, proposed by Edgar Sturtevant, challenging this assumption by saying sound changes do not occur uniformly. On-going Sound Change is a concept from the 1960s, proposed by Labov, suggesting that sound change is constantly happening.
Lexical Diffusion, a term coined by William Wang in the 1970s, posits that sound change occurs word by word rather than across all words simultaneously. Finally, Optimality theory was developed in the 1990s and is a linguistic model proposing that observed forms of language arise from the interaction of conflicting constraints.

Peter Trudgill's works are arranged in this order: "The Social Differentiation of English in Norwich" (1974), "Dialects in Contact" (1986), "On Dialect: Social and Geographical Perspectives" (1983), "New Dialect Formation: The inevitability of Colonial Englishes" (2004), and "Sex, covert prestige and Linguistic change" (1972). This sequence represents the chronological order of the publication of his works.

As per the 2011 Census of India, the number of speakers for these languages is as follows: Kolami (approx. 200,000 speakers), Savara (approx. 250,000 speakers), Bodo (approx. 1.5 million speakers), Tulu (approx. 2 million speakers), Bhojpuri (approx. 40 million speakers). Therefore, the correct ascending order is (d) Kolami, (c) Savara, (a) Bodo, (b) Tulu, (e) Bhojpuri.

The lobes of the brain are organized in the following order from front to back: Frontal lobe (c), Temporal lobe (d), Parietal lobe (a), and Occipital lobe (b). The frontal lobe is at the front and is involved in decision making and planning. The temporal lobe, near the temples, is responsible for hearing and language. The parietal lobe, at the top back, processes sensory information. Finally, the occipital lobe at the very back of the brain is primarily responsible for vision.

"Field Linguistics: A Guide to Linguistic Field Methods" by J.W. Samarin was published in 1967. "The Methodology of Field Investigations in Linguistics" by A.E. Kibrik was published in 1977. "Field linguistics: A Beginner's Guide" by T. Crowley was published in 1990. "Linguistic Fieldwork: A Student Guide" by P. Newman and M. Ratiff was published in 2001. Lastly "An Introduction to Linguistic Field Methods" by B. Vaux and J. Cooper was published in 2011.

Both statements are correct. Infan linguistic development is highly patterned Hearing infants exposed to spoken language indeed produce a limited set of phonetic forms. Similarly, for deaf infants exposed to sign language, they produce a limited set o: signs. These developments happen around the same age of 4-7 months.

Statement I is true. The informative function of language refers to conveying information about the world around us Statement II is false. The phatic function o language is indeed used to maintain friendly social contact with the addressee, often without conveying any significan information.

Both (A) and (R) are correct. Language death refers to the extinction of a language when its speakers cease to use it. Language attrition refers to the loss of a native or second language over time, either ir individuals or in a community, but it doesn necessarily result in language death.

Assertion (A) is incorrect. The grammartranslation method is much older, being used in Europe since the Middle Ages to teach Latin. Reason (R) is correct, as it correctly describes the characteristics of the grammartranslation method, which heavily relies or explicit grammatical explanation, rote learning of vocabulary, and translation exercises.