The sentence fragments "the English language holds claim to the largest vocabulary of any language in the world by far" and "but after the stolen words"
clearly indicate that a large number of words were borrowed into the English language. Therefore, the word for the first blank is
plethora, which means large and/or excessive. The word
paucity means lack, and is the exact opposite of what we are looking for.
Plenum indicates completeness as "in a plenary session of the committee", which indicates a session in which all members are invited and usually present.
Next, we have a blank in a sentence next to a colon. Now what follows a colon, elucidates what came before it. The sentence fragment after the colon talks about two sets of scholars, the ones who hold that the English language has the largest vocabulary, and the others who believe that the assertion is not accurate, ones the stolen words are _________. The only way to fill this blank is to choose
discounted. If the stolen words are
tallied or
queried, nothing changes. So they are the wrong choice. And since there are two sets of scholars with two opposing opinions, we can say
dichotomy is the right word for the second blank. The words
paradigm (pattern or template) and
case in point (example) do not convey the intended meaning and are thus the wrong choices.
_________________