#6 - Global Reference, Must Be True, Subject Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (B).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[mikeross1234]

Need help on this one. I don't know the difference between B and D. Both show that any form of instruction or persuasion has bearing on an individual's choices, strengthening the prescriptivists view and undermining the claim made by the descriptivists that say any assistance wouldn't change bearing on language cases.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Mike,

The problem with answer choice (D) here is that it goes farther than the passage supports. We know that descriptivists want to describe how language is used by people---the rules for descriptivists come from the usage. Answer choice (D) goes further and ascribes a judgment about language change to descriptivists. We don't know that they would want to slow the pace of language change, or in any way influence HOW the language changes. They simply describe what they see.

Hope that helps!