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  3. One of the liveliest debates in linguistics is over whether all languages share fundamental properties. If so, perhaps language

One of the liveliest debates in linguistics is over whether all languages share fundamental properties. If so, perhaps language

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问题     One of the liveliest debates in linguistics is over whether all languages share fundamental properties. If so, perhaps language is a universal feature of evolution. To find out, scholars have looked to other universal features, and one in particular: no society on Earth lacks music. The comparison illuminates what is special about both.
    Music and language seem intimately linked, but how? Did language start with song, as Darwin believed or is music "auditory cheesecake" that developed from language and other useful faculties, as Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychologist, has said? Is music itself a language, as Stevie Wonder sang? Might the two be fundamentally the same?
    Some similarities are obvious. Both can utilize the unique human vocal tract. Both have a kind of beat. Both can express emotion. Both can be either carefully composed or spontaneously improvised. And both are highly social. Although the origin of music is unclear, it seems likely to have involved celebration, communal worship or martial inspiration and co-ordination.
    At a structural level the parallels are striking, too. With a finite set of notes or words, and a finite set of rules, an inexhaustible variety of novel melodies or sentences can be created. This "discrete infinity" is often said to be the feature of human language. Animal communication, by contrast, is only able to convey a limited number of thoughts (the location of a source of food, for example, or the presence of a predator).
    Aniruddh Patel of Thufts University has argued that music and language, rather than being essentially the same, rely on the same bit of the brain. In an experiment he presented his subjects with a sentence that contained a grammatical trick ("The scientist confirmed the hypothesis was being studied in his lab"), revealing one word at a time. The subjects were to press a button for each word at their own pace. Many paused at the unexpected "was". "The scientist confirmed the hypothesis" seemed a complete sentence.
    They also heard music as they performed this exercise. Some were treated to a new chord in a pleasing progression with every word that was revealed. Others heard a jarring chord at the moment they reached the trick word "was". Both groups slowed down—but those given the inharmonious notes did so much more. Mr Patel hypothesises that this is because sentence structure, and the structure of the harmony, draw on shared, limited resources in the brain.
The difference in communication between humans and animals is__________.
选项 A、the infinity of conveying thoughts
B、the endless variety of notes or words
C、the finite grammatical tricks
D、the various ways of expression
答案 A
解析 由题干中的关键词difference in communication between humans and animals定位到第四段最后一句，该句指出Animal communication，by contrast，is only able to convey a limited number of thoughts(相比之下，动物之间的交流只能传达有限的想法)，且由上文的内容可知，人类“用一套有限的音符或文字，以及一套有限的规则，就可以创造出无穷无尽的新旋律或句子。这种‘离散无穷大’常被认为是人类语言的特点”，因此可以得出，人与动物在沟通方面的区别为语言传递内容的无限性，故此选项[A]为正确答案。
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