Reading Comprehension

PT104 · S3 · P2 · Q9 Hopi Personal Names

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Personal names are generally regarded by European thinkers in two major ways, both of which deny that names have any significant semantic content.

Central Topic / Purpose

significance of Hopi Names / Clarify Misconception (or Highlight Something Overlooked)

Main Point

Unlike Mill's point of view (that names are meaningless) or Strauss's (that names confer social rank), the correct view of Hopi names is that they were extremely meaningful things that not only helped to indicate social relationships but also provided aesthetic delight because of their poetic beauty or significance.

Passage Map

P1 - Introduce other views on function of names before pivoting into Passage's focus: Hopi Names.

P2 - Background information on when and how Hopis receive names

P3 - Elaboration on naming process, illuminated by an example, culminating in a takeway that the names are like tiny poems

P4 - Author's summary of Hopi names, showing how neither of the views on function in names from P1 are adequate in describing Hopi names.

Other Commentary

In trying to solve the passage from the 1st paragraph, there are a few foreshadowing hints: 1st sentence:

The fact that there are two views on how to regard personal names would prompt us to think, .

The wording that "X is generally thought of as Y" foreshadows a Clarify a Misconception / Highlight Something Overlooked type passage.

When we see the 3rd sentence say, "Consequently, X has been neglected", we would think, .

In this sense, we could see the passage as a Illustrate by Example, in which the discussion of Hopi names is just the example used to illustrate the broader point that some societies use names for functions that go beyond what our two guys enumerated in the 2nd sentence.

9.

The author most likely refers to Western Apache place names (last sentence of the third paragraph) in order to

  1. offer an example of how

    Not an Example

    "beautifully ascended" is an example of a name that contains references not evident in its literal translation. We have reason to believe that Western Apache place names would also have this quality, but the author doesn't provide such an example. If this question stem had asked, "The author most likely refers to Lomayayva in order to", then this answer would apply.

    19% picked this

  2. Correct

    apply a commentator’s characterization of

    Why this is right

    The author is saying that Hopi personal names are "tiny imagist poems". They have the same quality that led a dude to call Western Apache place names "tiny imagist poems", so it would be fair to call Hope names "tiny imagist poems".

    Skill tested: Local Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.

    51% picked this

  3. contrast Western Apache naming practices

    Opposite

    This isn't a moment of contrast; it's one of similarity. Both Western Apache place names and Hopi persona names are similar insofar as they both evoke a condensed image.

    2% picked this

  4. demonstrate that other names besides

    Weaker Match / Wrong Purpose

    I would find this tempting. It seems true to say that this reference to Western Apache place names demonstrates that other names besides Hopi names have semantic content. This loses out to the winning answer both because a) there's nothing tentative about it -- it does have semantic content, it's not speculating that it may. b) at this moment in the passage the author isn't trying to make a broader point that semantically rich names are common. She is just trying to borrow a phrase, "tiny imagist poem", that she thinks nicely captures what Hopi names are like.

    26% picked this

  5. explain how a specific Hopi

    Unsupported / Word Blender

    This is not any meaning being conveyed at the end of that paragraph. We have no reason to think that any Hopi name is referring to a particular Western Apache site. The particular site referred to in "beautifully ascended" is the mesa on which Oraibi sits, but that is a Hopi clan, so presumably a Hopi site.

    2% picked this

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