Author Question: Why is a sentence with a nested structure more difficult for readers to understand, compared to a ... (Read 59 times)

lb_gilbert · **on:** Jun 20, 2018

Why is a sentence with a nested structure more difficult for readers to understand, compared to a sentence without a nested structure?

a. Nested structures require the passive voice; readers need to switch around the subject and the object of the sentence.
b. Sentences with nested structures typically include many negative words (such as not and deny). Therefore, readers need to translate the sentence into a linguistically positive sentence.
c. Sentences with a nested structure require readers to store the first part of the sentence until they have processed later parts of the sentence.
d. In a sentence with a nested structure, the deep structure and the surface structure are fairly similar to one another, creating an ambiguity that is difficult to resolve.

Question 2

Chapter 9 discussed Noam Chomsky's theories about language. According to this discussion,

a. Chomsky's theories emphasize that humans have inborn skills in language.
b. Chomsky's theories were useful to behaviorists, because his theories made predictions about observable language behavior.
c. Chomsky argues that children's language acquisition is possible because of their sophisticated working memory.
d. Chomsky argues that children's language skills depend on the linguistic rules that their parents teach them.