Efficiency and redundancy are contradictory characteristics of linguistic systems; however, they can be used together...
Brett-LindsayJuly 4, 2020
First sentence not mutually exclusive?
I read the first clause in the first sentence as meaning the two elements were mutually exclusive:
"Efficiency and redundancy are contradictory characteristics of linguistic systems"
I diagrammed it as follows:
E --> not R
R --> not E
When I had finished diagramming everything and answered the question, I discovered that that part wasn't important to answering the question.
I have no question about why this question is answer choice E.
My question is does the first sentence imply mutual exclusivity?
If so, is my diagram correct?
Is diagramming this kind of mutual exclusivity very useful in other questions or can we largely ignore it?
Thank you
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The first clause does not mean that the two elements are mutually exclusive. This is demonstrated by the second clause in the sentence.
Basically, the first sentence is saying that these two characteristics of linguistic systems are contradictory, but they can be used together to achieve usefulness and reliability.
Therefore, they are not mutually exclusive for three reasons:
(1) Two things can be contradictory without being mutually exclusive.
(2) The first clause tells us that they are both characteristics of linguistic systems.
(3) The second clause tells us that they can be used together; therefore, they cannot be mutually exclusive as they can co-exist at least some of the time.
If they had been mutually exclusive, your diagram would have been correct. This sort of diagram is most useful in logic games where some rules may say e.g. if X, not Y. It can be useful in logical reasoning questions, but I would focus more on the S&N indicator words and understanding how different parts of the stimulus factor into the argument as opposed to focusing on diagramming every single aspect of a stimulus.
Hopefully this makes sense. Keep up the good work and please let us know if you have any further questions.
