Languages from the past are very different from today's languages.In the Early Middle Ages，the English word"make" was pronounced as "ma-ke"with a short "a" similar to the vowel（元音） in"cut".But in the Late Middle Ages，it was pronounced as"maak"with a long"a" similar to the vowel in"father".The word"make" was not the only one and this happened to many Middle English words.
   To explore the reason，researchers，Theresa Matzinger and Nikolaus Ritt，analyzed more than 40，000 words from English texts from the Early Middle Ages.They determined the vowel lengths by using dictionaries or taking neighboring sounds into account and counted the occurrence frequencies of words with long and short vowels.They found the majority of monosyllabic （單音節(jié)的） Middle English words had long vowels.This means that monosyllabic words with a short vowel sounded"strange"and were not recognized clearly and quickly by listeners.because they did not fit the sound patterns that listeners were used to.In contrast，words with a long vowel could be processed by the brain more easily.
   Over centuries，the easier learnability of monosyllabic words with long vowels made more and more monosyllabic words get long vowels. "One can imagine language changes like a telephone game，" says Matzinger."One generation of speakers speaks a particular language variety（變體）.The children of this generation process and acquire frequent patterns from their parents' generation more easily than less frequent ones and therefore use those pattems even more frequently.This second generation of speakers then passes a slightly changed language to their own children.We also notice the gradual language changes by the fact that our grandparents，we and our children speak slightly differently."
   However，if this process happens over many generations，language changes so much that past varieties are hard for people today to understand.This development lies in the fact that our brain can learn frequent sound patterns more easily than less frequent ones.That is，the general capacity of our brain to preferentially learn frequent patterns plays a role in how languages change.

（1）What does the underlined word "this" in the first paragraph refer to？

D

D

A．The disappearance of vowels.
B．The simplification of word usage.
C．The spelling change in short verbs.
D．The lengthening of vowels in English words.
（2）Why did most of the monosyllabic Middle English words have long vowels？

B

B

A．To make a conversation more relaxing.
B．To make people recognize the words with ease.
C．To improve the international status of English.
D．To reduce the usage frequency of monosyllabic words.
（3）What do Matzinger's words in Paragraph 3 show？

C

C

A．It's easy to notice huge language changes.
B．It's difficult to learn words with more than one syllable.
C．Frequent speech sound patterns are easily passed down.
D．People tend to purposely make changes to English pronunciation.
（4）What may be an important reason for sound changes according to the study？

A

A

A．The processing ability of our brains.
B．The education levels of communities.
C．The introduction of foreign languages.
D．The changes in our living environment.