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← Language & CommunicationIn a dialect continuum across the Iberian Peninsula, which consequence follows if a speaker from Lisbon attempts to communicate with someone from a remote village in the Pyrenees?
A)Immediate communicative breakdown occurs abruptly
B)Lexical interference increases phonetic adaptation
C)Syntactic alignment spontaneously enables understanding
D)Gradual mutual intelligibility decreases across isoglosses✓
💡 Explanation
Mutual intelligibility decreases gradually, rather than abruptly, because dialect continua are defined by a transition zone. The distance and accumulated linguistic differences mean that the speakers on opposite ends struggle, therefore D is correct, rather than immediate breakdown.
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