CAT Question Paper | CAT Verbal Ability Slot
Question :

From the passage, it can be inferred that all of the following are true about Pinker's book, "The Language Instinct", EXCEPT that Pinker:

Started 3 weeks ago by Shashank in

Option D is the correct answer.

Explanatory Answer

In the last paragraph, the passage states that Pinker's proposition that the roots of language must be in the genes will 'undoubtedly raise the hackles of some behavioral psychologists and anthropologists, for it apparently contradicts the liberal idea that human behavior may be changed for the better by improvements in culture and environment'. So, Pinker's position is at variance with that of behavioural psychologists. Option D is not true about Pinker's book.


According to the passage, while Chomsky's book was full of 'theoretical linguistics, in discourse so opaque that it was nearly incomprehensible even to some scholars', Pinker's book is 'brilliant, witty and altogether satisfying'. So, option A is true.


That Pinker disagrees with Chomsky on some grounds is mentioned in the last line of the first paragraph, as well as in the third paragraph, where the passage states that 'Unlike Mr. Chomsky, Mr. Pinker firmly places the wiring of the brain for language within the framework of Darwinian natural selection and evolution'. So, option B is true.


Pinker's book, according to the passage, 'has brought Mr. Chomsky's findings to everyman'. So, option C is also true.

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