Q16 - We can learn about

[mchuynh]

I was left with A and B. I eliminated B because of "some languages"...and thought it might be out of score since the argument focus on Proto-Indo-European languages...

I was thinking A can weaken the argument by suggesting that they MIGHT not live in cold climate, isolated from ocean or sea...

Fish perhaps = possibility ocean or sea? hence it can weaken the argument?

Can someone explain to me why is A wrong?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Answer choice (A) is definitely tempting, but is it a better choice than answer choice (B)? Let's take a look.

Answer choice (B) indicates that some languages lack words for prominent elements of the environments of their speakers. If that's true, then the absence of the word "sea" could not be used as a reliable indicator that the Proto-Indo-European speakers were isolated from ocean and sea.

Answer choice (A) is close, but not close enough. And the reason is that fish come from places other than just the ocean or sea. Fish can also be found in lakes and rivers, and so the word fish used by the Proto-Indo-Europeans could merely refer to fish taken from lakes and rivers. If the word had been something only found in oceans, such as "dolphins" or something similar, it would have been a better answer choice.

Does that answer your question? Let me know if you still need a bit more help on this one.

[rsmorale]

What kind of incorrect answer choice is E? Is it out of scope?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

It's fair to call answer choice (E) "out of scope." The issue with answer choice (E) is that it doesn't adress the conclusion that the people who spoke Proto-Indo-European lived in a cold climate, isolated from oceans or sea. Nor does it address the evidence that they lacked words for "sea" yet had words for "winter."

According to answer choice (E), those folks could have migrated around a cold-climate. Migration simply doesn't challenge that they lived in cold-climate, nor does it address the evidence about the presence and absence of certain kinds of words.

It's tough for an answer to represent the gap in the reasoning when it deals directly neither with evidence nor with the conclusion.

Hope that helps!

[eapetrilli]

Is (D) wrong for similar reasons as (A), namely because of the alternative consideration, in this case, that a cold climate can still experience instances of warm weather?

[patrice.antoine]

Answer choice (B) indicates that some languages lack words for prominent elements of the environments of their speakers. If that's true, then the absence of the word "sea" could not be used as a reliable indicator that the Proto-Indo-European speakers were isolated from ocean and sea.

But the "SOME language" is not strong enough. The language spoken by Proto-Indo-Europeans could very well not be part of that "some".

This is a ridiculous question.

[magnusgan]

This is ridiculous. Why does some in (B) work. It could be just as well that some precludes the Proto-Indo-European language.

Why is the assumption that "some" includes PIE language fair to make whereas the assumption that fish in (A) come from the sea unfair to make.

Please explain!

[jeffrey.m.amico]

I'm curious on how "some" works here as well. I'd appreciate if someone could elaborate more generally on how "some" functions in the various argument types (weaken vs. necessary or sufficient assumption, for instance). It seems like "some" - as it's used in answer choice B, for example - is going to be a right answer for a weaken/strengthen question much more often than it would be for other types of assumption questions.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

The quantification "some" just serves to reduce the strength of the statement. Typically, it's a very positive characteristic of answer choices when working on Necessary Assumptions or Must be True questions. And frequently, it's a negative characteristic on Strengthen/Weaken questions.

However in this case, answer choice (B) does work to attack the argument's assumption. It doesn't completely disprove the conclusion, but it does undermine it.

Evidence: PIE language has certain words.
Conclusion: PIE people lived in areas with features described by words in language.

Assumption: If a language has certain words, then the environment where the language is used has those features present.

Attack on the assumption presented by answer choice (B): a language can have words while the environment where the language is spoke may be without the features described by those words.

It's a perfect attack on the argument's implicit assumption!

[mchelle]

I understand why (B) is correct, but I am still confused about why (D) is incorrect. If the Proto-Indo-European language possesses words for "heat," doesn't that mean they could have also lived in a warm climate? Wouldn't this undermine the conclusion that they lived only in a cold climate on the basis that they used the words "winter," "snow," etc.?
Or is (D) incorrect because it doesn't really inherently attack the reasoning that the presence/absence of words determines the living conditions?

[SecondWind180]

I understand why (B) is correct, but I am still confused about why (D) is incorrect. If the Proto-Indo-European language possesses words for "heat," doesn't that mean they could have also lived in a warm climate? Wouldn't this undermine the conclusion that they lived only in a cold climate on the basis that they used the words "winter," "snow," etc.?
Or is (D) incorrect because it doesn't really inherently attack the reasoning that the presence/absence of words determines the living conditions?

The author takes for granted that the PIE didn't live by the sea because they didn't have a word for "sea." It further takes for granted that since the PIE have words for "snow", "winter", and "wolf" they lived in a cold climate.

The authors flawed conclusion is that the PIE lived in a cold climate because they didn't have a word for "sea" and they had a word for "snow" and "winter".

Assuming that having a word for "heat" means they lived in a warm climate is using the same flawed logic the author is using and actually would strengthen the answer. If it were true that PIE have a word for "heat" as (D) says, it does not mean that they live in a warm climate. Maybe they use "heat" to describe the warmth of a person's body (aka body heat).

(D) really doesn't imply anything and isn't within the scope of the argument. Rather, the answer is playing off your brain's relationship between hot and cold the same way it plays off the relationship between "fish" and "sea" in (A) because we know they are both closely related. (As opposed to lamp and octopus)

Basically, our goal for arriving at the credited response is to find an answer that weakens the relationship between language and living conditions. I.e. words omitted or included from a language don't have a bearing on the living conditions of people. (B) does this.

I know this explanation wasn't concise because I repeated myself a lot, but I repetition helps in understanding.

[mjacob0511]

Argument: We can learn about past cultures living conditions by examining its language. It gives the example of the PIE language which had words for winter, snow and wolf - but not for sea. This would indicate that they lived in a cold climate not near the ocean.

We are trying to weaken the argument that by examining the language, we can determine past living conditions.

(A) Fish? That is supposed to make you think that the PIE's lived near the sea, but fish exist in much smaller bodies of water, and having a word for a food doesn't imply they lived near the ocean.
(B) Boom! If some languages do not have words for prominent elements of their speakers environment, then you can't bring any proof of the geographical conditions of the PIE speakers from the fact that the PIE's didn't have for example a word for "sea". Maybe they lived near the sea but just didn't have a word for it.
(C) Irrelevant. Who cares about nowadays.
(D) Heat? It's a trick like in (A). The argument assumes they lived in a cold climate because they have words like winter and snow. Heat isn't the opposite of that. It can be five degrees outside and you can "heat up by a fire" or use "heat" to cook.
(E) Irrelevant. Nomadic?

[WaltGrace1983]

I see this question a little bit differently and, in the process of figuring out what makes this question tick, I think I figured out something about weaken questions. Can an instructor make sure that my reasoning makes sense and is consistent with how I should be analyzing this question and questions like it?

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) lacks a word for "sea"
+
PIE has a word for "winter" and "snow"
→
People who spoke (PIE) lived in a climate that was (1) cold; (2) isolated from the ocean or sea

The Assumption(s): this argument, much like that of 14.2.12, the author is assuming that language has something to say about environment. In other words, if there IS a word in the language then the environment probably had the element the word is describing; if there is NOT a word in the language, then the environment of the speakers probably did NOT have the element that word would have described.

How could we weaken this? We could show that there definitely are some elements that were in the environment but were not put forth in words. Perhaps we could say, "most languages without a word for 'sea' still actually did live by the sea." Or perhaps we could say that, "the words of most languages are not exactly indicative of their environment, but rather, environments of other peoples that were heard through storytelling." The point is that we want to create a disconnect between the words spoken in the language and the ideas that the speakers have (the elements of their environment, etc.).

The Answer Choices:

(A) This is definitely tempting. However, just because the POE people had a word meaning "fish" doesn't actually mean anything! Maybe they heard about fish in an old folk tale and they actually live in the desert. I don't think you need to go as far as to think about it in terms of, "well the argument was talking about ocean/sea but fish are in more places than that!" I think this might be too specific, even for the LSAT! I think an easier frame of mind would be to realize this: you would still be relying on the very assumption that the question is designed to test. That would be that there is some connection between language and environment.

(B) Yes! This is exactly what we were looking for. This weakens, why? Because it shows that there may not necessarily be a connection between language and environment. Thus, this would destabilize the link between the premises and the conclusion. That is the name of the game! "Some" is tricky though. I'll get to that later (see the next section).

(C) We don't care about languages today. Even if we did, this still wouldn't prove anything. So no languages have a word for "sea?" What does that do to the connection between language and environment? Nothing!

(D) This is a tricky one too! However, we must not equate a "cold climate" to the "absence of heat." This could even strengthen the argument! What do people want in a "cold climate?" Heat! We might infer that it is perfectly plausible to be in a "cold climate" but still refer to "heat" as body warmth, space heaters, etc.

(E) Once again, this does nothing to the connection between language and environment.

A Discussion of "Some"

I could be wrong. However, I think I have figured out the frame of mind for helping one to decide when "some" is relevant.

Think about this like the negation test. I think many people (and I am totally guilty of this too ) totally misunderstand the negation test. I'll post an example Christine gave that very succinctly shows what's up with that "negation test" (you'll see why this is relevant...assuming my thoughts are good ones!)

The negation test is unfortunately very often misunderstood. To "destroy an argument", the negation of a necessary assumption does not have to make the conclusion categorically false, it merely has to make it unsupported. In other words, the 'destruction' is not so much the conclusion as it is the link between the premise and the conclusion.

Take a crazy simple example:
PREMISE: All boys like sports.
CONCLUSION: Andy likes sports.

This argument is clearly assuming that Andy is a boy. That's necessary to the argument. If we negate it, we get "Andy is not a boy". Now, if Andy is a girl, it is still possible that she likes sports, right? If Andy is a girl, we have NO IDEA about her sports preference, and there would be zero connection between the premise and the conclusion. The conclusion would not be definitively false, but it would be wholly unsupported.

With that in mind, I think "some" might work in a similar fashion here. Let's go back to the argument with the new answer choice inserted:

Proto-Indo-European (PIE) lacks a word for "sea"
+
PIE has a word for "winter" and "snow"
+
But some languages lack words for prominent elements of the environments of their speakers
→
People who spoke (PIE) lived in a climate that was (1) cold; (2) isolated from the ocean or sea

Uh oh. This would basically invalidate the connection between the premises and the conclusion! This wouldn't make the conclusion completely defunct - far from it actually. However, if we say, "you know those premises you have there? Well we cannot really form an argument on them. Why? Well because it is actually the case that some languages simply don't include prominent elements of the environment of their speakers." If we say this, all of a sudden our argument falls apart.

Again, it doesn't INVALIDATE the argument, but it makes the conclusion NOT FOLLOW from the premises that are meant to support it.

I don't know - I'll need to play with this idea a lot more and make note of correct answer choices with "some" but I think it may help me determine if these "some"s are relevant or not. I have been working a lot on that lately.

[christine.defenbaugh]

As usual, you've got some really insightful thoughts percolating here, WaltGrace1983!

First, I think this question may need a formal breakdown of the core, so here it is:

PREMISE: PIE has words for 'winter', 'snow', and 'wolf'
PIE lacks word for 'sea'
CONCLUSION: Likely that PIE peeps lived in cold climate, without sea/ocean

You're absolutely right, WaltGrace1983, that this argument is assuming that language can tell us something about the environment. I love the way that you've phrased that. Anything that undermined that connection would absolutely weaken this argument, and that's how answer (B) steps up to the plate.

But I would caution you to realize that that is actually not the only assumption being made here! It's the assumption that is being explicitly tested in by the correct answer, but it's not the only one in the argument - and in fact, the two most dangerous answers are tempting precisely because of a *another* lurking assumption here.

So, even if we accepted the idea that language does indeed tell us something about environment, we'd also need to assume that these words (or lack) are the only words (or lack) that matter for a determination of cold climate/existence of sea/ocean. What if we found out the PIE peeps had a word for "whale"?! That would be decent evidence they had access to the ocean!

This is what makes (A) and (D) so tempting - at first glance, we might think these answers are undermining the conclusion even accepting the assumption that language tells us something about environment. But on deeper inspection, "fish" and "heat", even if they reflect the environment, *still* wouldn't weaken the conclusion.

(A) Even accepting the assumption that language tells us something about environment, this just tells us that PIE peeps have fish. It makes us think of "sea", but fish are basically everywhere there's water: rivers, lakes, streams, ponds, etc. Pretty much the only place where humans could hang out and NOT have any fish is the desert. So, even if PIE peeps HAD fish, that doesn't really suggest they have access to the sea or ocean specifically.

Similarly, even accepting the assumption that language tells us something about environment, (D) would just indicate that PIE peeps had heat. Well, I should hope so! If they didn't have heat, in any form, they'd probably be dead. While warm climate people might describe the heat of the sun, cold climate people would probably describe the heat of a fire, or body heat. So again, the idea that PIE people HAD heat doesn't suggest anything about the climate that they lived in.

If the only way to have "fish" was to be by the ocean, though, (A) would be awesome! And if the only way to have "heat" was to be in a warm climate, (D) would similarly be awesome! These answer choices WOULD have targeted a difference assumption than (B) does, but that's okay - most LSAT arguments have more than one assumption going on.

In fact, the LSAT knows that the assumption that these are the only relevant words is the first one most people will pick up on. That's the entire reason they wrote (A) and (D) (but made sure they didn't actually undermine that assumption). Then, sneaky jerks, they wrote the correct answer to hinge on an entirely different assumption - the one we're less likely to notice right at the beginning.

On the nature of "some" in Weaken questions
This is some great stuff here!

Notice what's really happening in the assumption - the argument is assuming that language is enough information to allow us to draw a conclusion about environment. The assumption is inherently a conditional! "If [language] then [environment]". We want to damage that conditional. What do we need to call a conditional statement a liar? All we need to do is show that sometimes it doesn't work.

In other words, if an argument makes an assumption that one thing is enough to guarantee the conclusion, then showing that things just don't ALWAYS work that way absolutely damages that assumption.

Really great thoughts, and keep pushing yourself!

[WaltGrace1983]

Thanks a lot for the great write-up!

[daijob]

Hi,

I was just wondering why (D) can be so tempting...maybe I missed some logic here.
Could anyone explain how it tries to confuse people??

Thanks.

[tommywallach]

Christine goes into it pretty in-depth in her post, daijob. That should be enough of an explanation there!

-t

[JoyS894]

Can someone clarify what the assumptions are underlying this argument and how we know which one we are supposed to be weakening? The reason why I chose A over B (even though I disliked both answer choices) was because of the "some" in B, as some previous posters have mentioned. If you say that "Some languages lack words..." PIE languages could fall outside of the some that lack words, and this argument would still stand. I would appreciate any further input on this question!

[DeannaK734]

What is the famous flaw in this argument?

[Misti Duvall]

What is the famous flaw in this argument?

I'm not sure there is one here. The classic flaws can be super helpful, but they're not always present. If you don't see one (or if you're not sure), the easiest thing to do is just focus on the gap between the premise and conclusion.