第二篇：
In asking about the origins of human language, we first have to make clear what the question is. The question is not
how languages gradually developed over time into the languages of the world today. Rather, it is how the human species
developed over time so that we — and not our closest relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos — became capable of
using language.
And what an amazing development this was! No other natural communication system is like human language.
Human language can express thoughts on an unlimited number of topics (the weather, the war, the past, the future,
mathematics, gossip, fairy tales, how to fix the sink...). It can be used not just to convey information, but to solicit
information (questions) and to give orders. Unlike any other animal communication system, it contains an expression for
negation — what is not the case. Every human language has a vocabulary of tens of thousands of words, built up from
several dozen speech sounds. Speakers can build an unlimited number of phrases and sentences out of words plus a
smallish collection of prefixes and suffixes, and the meanings of sentences are built from the meanings of the individual
words. What is still more remarkable is that every normal child learns the whole system from hearing others use it.
Animal communication systems, in contrast, typically have at most a few dozen distinct calls, and they are used
only to communicate immediate issues such as food, danger, threat, or reconciliation. Many of the sorts of meanings
conveyed by chimpanzee communication have counterparts in human 'body language'. For animals that use combinations
of calls (such as some songbirds and some whales), the meanings of the combinations are not made up of the meanings
of the parts (though there are many species that have not been studied yet). And the attempts to teach apes some version
of human language, while fascinating, have produced only rudimentary results. So the properties of human language are
unique in the natural world.
【題組】50. What is the conclusion of the passage?
(A) Every human language has a vocabulary of thousands of words, built up from several dozen speech sounds.
(B) Animal communication systems typically have at most a dozen distinct calls.
(C) The properties of human language are unique in the natural world.
(D) Human language can express thoughts on an unlimited number of topics.
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