One truly remarkable achievement that sets us humans apart the 【M1】______ rest of the ani

mal kingdom is our creation and use of language. Although animals can communicate with one another, their limited number of calls and gestures are merely isolating signals that convey 【M2】______ very specific messages(for example, a greeting, a threat, summons to【M3】______ congregate)in much same way that single words or stereotyped phrases【M4】______ do in a human language. On contrast, human languages are amazingly 【M5】______ flexible and producing. From a small number of individually 【M6】______ meaningless sounds, a person who is proficient in a language can generate thousands of meaningful auditory patterns(syllables, words) that can then be combined according to a set of grammatical rules to produce an infinite number of messages. Language is also an inventive tool. Most of what people say or hear in any given situation is not merely a repetition of what they have said or heard before; speakers create novel utterances on the spot, and the topics they talk about may have nothing to do with his current situation or the stream of ongoing 【M7】______ events. Indeed, language is the only form. of communication by which we can easily produce a variety of messages that are blatantly untrue (as in a lie or a sarcastic utterance)and otherwise figurative in nature 【M8】______ (as in the simile "Shes like a breath of fresh air"). Yet, creative as we may be in generating new messages, but other people who know the 【M9】______ language will be able to understand any and all of our ideas as long as each of our statements adhere to the rules and conventions of the 【M10】______ language we are speaking.

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