Final answer:
The English lexicon is likely to include C) a few million words. Human vocabulary is limited by memory and environment, and the distinction between a language and a dialect is not strictly linguistic.
Step-by-step explanation:
The lexicon of English is estimated to be quite large, but it is not uncountable. The best answer to the question 'How large is the lexicon of English likely to be?' would be option C) A few million words.
While it is challenging to provide an exact number due to the dynamic nature of language and factors such as scientific names and technical jargon, comprehensive dictionaries of English contain hundreds of thousands of words.
Additionally, any single individual's vocabulary is much smaller than the entire English lexicon, as it is constrained by the limits of human memory and the environment in which they live.
In terms of the difference between a language and a dialect, there is no defined cutoff point. Languages can have multiple dialects, with variations in accents, vocabulary, and grammar.
The distinction between a language and a dialect is often politically and culturally influenced rather than strictly linguistically defined.
When considering words that are most likely to be borrowed from another language, pronouns tend to be core to a language's structure and are less commonly borrowed than other types of words, such as those for plants, animals, and technological innovations.