Passage Three

Animals, too, communicate.If you try to catch a seagull，it will call out“Hahaha! Hahaha!”to

signal its friends to watch out for an intruder(入侵者).Certain fish signal their presence by sending

electric impulses from their muscles.But these signal systems differ in very fundamental ways from

human communication.

First of all, our symbols are subjective.If you do not speak Chinese, you would not know what a

gou is.Gou is the Chinese word for dog.There is no inherent connection between the word and the

thing itself.The Spaniards, after all, call the same animal perro and the French call it chien.The

meaning of a word is not determined by any

inherent quality of the thing itself.It is instead subjective：a word may mean whatever a group of

humans have agreed it is supposed to mean.On the other hand，animals are not free to produce different symbols subjectively to indicate the same thing.This is why, for example, all seagulls

throughout the world make the same sound to indicate the presence of danger.

Second，animal communication is a closed system, whereas human language is an open

system. Each animal species can communicate only a limited set of messages, and the meaning of these

signals is fixed.Animals can use only one signal at a time---they cannot combine two or more to

produce a new and more complex message.A bird can signal “worms” to other birds but not

“worms” and “cats” together. Animal communication is also closed in the sense of being tied to what

is immediately present in the environment. The bird can signal “worms” only because it sees them. In

contrast, we call blend and combine symbols to express whatever ideas come into our heads.We can

create new messages, and the potential number of messages that we can send is infinite.Thus we can

talk about concepts such as good and evil, truth and beauty, for which there is no physical thing that is

being signaled.It is this creative character of language that leads many people to believe that language

is unique to humans.Although several chimpanzees(黑猩猩)have been taught sign language, it is

doubtful that they have created innovative sentences of their own.

41.The author believes that animals are capable of ______.

A.arguing with their friends

B.sending messages to each other

C.using different signals for the same meaning

D.threatening their intruders with signals

42.The main idea of Paragraph 2 is that

A.no animals can use a subjective language as humans do

B.words and the things they refer to are inherently connected

C.animals produce fewer kinds of sound than humans

D.the seagull is a good example of animal communication

43.The word“infinite”(Para.3)means

A.complex B.creative C.unusual D.unlimited

44. According to the author, animals can only signal

A.what is visible B.what they want C.what is created D. what they remember

45.It is unique of human communication to express

A.physical things B.ideas C.symbols D.feelings