Help

The conclusion of the argument is: "Therefore, speakers of languages that have fewer basic words for colors than English has must be perceptually unable to distinguish as many colors as speakers of English can distinguish." Why? Because many languages have a specific word for "mother's brother" and a specific word for "father's brother," whereas English uses the word "uncle" for both. Thus, speakers of these languages evidence a more finely discriminated kinship system than English speakers do. And we also know that the number of basic words for colors varies widely from language to language. This is a Strengthen with Sufficient Premise question. Remember that a premise is sufficient for a conclusion, if and only if the existence of the premise guarantees or brings about the existence of the conclusion.Therefore, we need to find the premise that 100% guarantees the conclusion. The way you want to attack these answer choices is two-pronged. Ask yourself, does it strengthen? If it doesn't, then cross it out and continue to the next answer choice. If it does strengthen, however, then ask yourself whether or not the premise 100% guarantees the conclusion. As you can see, we have a gap between the numbers of basic words for colors varying widely, and our conclusion that speakers of languages with fewer basic words for colors than English must be perceptually unable to distinguish as many colors as speakers of English can distinguish. Thus, to strengthen the argument, we are looking for something to fill this gap between premise and conclusion. (B) is the correct answer because it both strengthens and guarantees the conclusion. It strengthens the argument by connecting the premise to the conclusion. If each language has a different basic word for each sensory quality that its speakers can perceptually distinguish, then a language with less basic words would have speakers who would perceptually distinguish less. Thus, this strengthens the argument by filling in the gap we pointed out, and it guarantees the conclusion since speakers of languages that have fewer basic words for colors than English must then be perceptually unable to distinguish as many colors as speakers of English can distinguish. Hope that was helpful! Let us know if you have any more questions.

I still don't understand what B is saying...can someone re explain please?

I also quite don't understand. Can you please explain it again?

Hi @filozinni and @amf, Thanks for the question! So let’s take a look at what we’re told in the stimulus first. We know that other languages have more detailed words for family members than English does. We’re told that therefore, people who speak these languages have a more finely discriminated kinship system in general. Now, there’s also some languages that have more detailed words for colors than others. The argument then concludes that (seemingly based on analogical reasoning with the family members) people who use fewer words for colors can’t see as many colors (perceptually unable to distinguish as many colors) as languages that use more colors (in this case, English). Now, we’re asked for something that needs to be assumed to allow us to properly draw this conclusion. That means the answer choice will introduce new information that we can use to complete the argument as presented. Let’s take a look at (B), which tells us that each language has a different basic word for each sensory quality that its speakers can perceptually distinguish. In other words, for every quality that you can perceive (such as every color that you can see), you have a word for it. Well, if that’s true, then a language with 5 color words has people who can see 5 colors, whereas a language with 10 colors words would have people who can see 10 colors. So then it also must be true that people with fewer words for colors than English see less colors than English speakers, since there is one different basic word per sensory quality (color). Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.

Thank you for that explanation!

Thank you so much @Shunhe!