Nobody knows

[Rospino]

A couple of things:

1. I am confused with 'it'. I originally suspected that 'them' would be more appropriate because of 'a language and the sublanguages...'. The plural 'sublanguages' had me confused. Should I have automatically assumed 'it' would be proper because of 'between' instead of 'among'?
2. I am also confused with the 2nd 'it' in answer choice (C). What's wrong with that?

Nobody knows exactly how many languages there are in the world, partly because of the difficulty of distinguishing between a language and the sublanguages or dialects within it, but those who have tried to count typically have found about five thousand.
(A) and the sublanguages or dialects within it, but those who have tried to count typically have found
(B) and the sublanguages or dialects within them, with those who have tried counting typically finding
(C) and the sublanguages or dialects within it, but those who have tried counting it typically find
(D) or the sublanguages or dialects within them, but those who tried to count them typically found
(E) or the sublanguages or dialects within them, with those who have tried to count typically finding

OA is A

[neptune28]

Hi, Rospino,

1. I am confused with 'it'. I originally suspected that 'them' would be more appropriate because of 'a language and the sublanguages...'. The plural 'sublanguages' had me confused. Should I have automatically assumed 'it' would be proper because of 'between' instead of 'among'?

OK, let's be careful not to overthink this. A sublanguage or dialect is part of what? A single language. Let's say you have a sublanguage X and a dialect Y. Could X be part of both English and German? Or could Y be part of both Swahili and Pig Latin? Not under normal circumstances. And let's say you have a sublanguage Z that is part of French. Would you have difficulty distinguishing between English and Z? Of course not. However, you might have difficulty distinguishing between "regular" French and Z. So, the meaning of the sentence is very important here. Once you figure out what the sentence is saying, then it becomes clear that "it" must be used to refer to "language."

2. I am also confused with the 2nd 'it' in answer choice (C). What's wrong with that?

Now you know why that's not the correct answer. :mrgreen: It would be OK to say "those who have tried counting them," but counting a single language ("it") makes no sense.

Hope this helps.

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Hi Rospino,

This SC comes down to a few rules that inter-connect:

1) 2-part phrase: The word "between" is always paired with the word "and." In addition, the words/phrases that follow the word "between" and the word "and" must be parallel. Eliminate D and E.

2) Paralel items: The first item is "A language"; the second item is "the sublanguages or dialects within it/them." By definition, the word "a" or "an" in front of a word makes the word a singular subject. For example, "a computer", "a team", "an argument", etc. are all singular nouns. Here, "a language" is singular, so "the sublanguages" must be "within IT." Eliminate B.

3) Modifying phrases/intent: The sentence refers to people who have tried to count up the number of languages (PLURAL) in the world. The end of the sentence tells us that the number of languages is about 5000; another reference to PLURAL languages. Answer C uses the pronoun "it", which is singular and not correct. Eliminate C.

Final Answer: A

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