Displaced Reference Paragraph Summary

CAT 2019 Slot 1 · VARC · Medium · Verbal Ability

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The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

A distinguishing feature of language is our ability to refer to absent things, known as displaced reference. A speaker can bring distant referents to mind in the absence of any obvious stimuli. Thoughts, not limited to the here and now, can pop into our heads for unfathomable reasons. This ability to think about distant things necessarily precedes the ability to talk about them. Thought precedes meaningful referential communication. A prerequisite for the emergence of human-like meaningful symbols is that the mental categories they relate to can be invoked even in the absence of immediate stimuli.

  1. A.

    Thoughts precede all speech acts and these thoughts pop up in our heads even in the absence of any stimulus.

  2. B.

    The ability to think about objects not present in our environment precedes the development of human communication.

  3. C.

    Thoughts are essential to communication and only humans have the ability to think about objects not present in their surroundings.

  4. D.

    Displaced reference is particular to humans and thoughts pop into our heads for no real reason.

Answer

B

Explanation

The central idea of the paragraph is that the cognitive capacity for displaced reference (thinking about distant/absent objects) precedes referential communication. Option B captures this core thesis accurately without overgeneralizing (unlike option A's 'all speech acts').

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