Practice question · True or false
Hockett gave a single fixed list of design features that has been used unchanged ever since.
Hints
- His publications differ from one another.
- The best-known version has thirteen features; a later one has sixteen.
Show the answer
False
Why
False. The lists vary across his own publications — thirteen in the most-cited version, sixteen later — and have been revised by others since. Treating the count as the substance misses the method, which is to name properties precisely enough that a system can be checked against them.
Practise Design Features: What Makes Language Language
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More questions on Design Features: What Makes Language Language
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