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 special: no society on Earth lacks 【M1】_________

music. The comparison illuminates that is special about both. 【M2】_________

Music and language seem intimately linked, but how? Did language

start with song, as Darwin believed? Or is music “auditory cheesecake”

that developed of language and other useful faculties, as Steven Pinker, 【M3】_________

a Harvard psychologist, has said? Is music it a language, as Stevie 【M4】_________

Wonder intoned? Might the two be fundamentally same? 【M5】_________

Some similarities are obvious. Both can utilise the unique human

vocal tract. Both have a kind of beat. Both can express emotion. Both

can be neither carefully composed or spontaneously improvised. And 【M6】_________

both are high social. Although the origin of music is unclear, it seems 【M7】_________

likely to have involved in celebration, communal worship or martial 【M8】_________

inspiration and coordination.

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 a hallmark of human language. Animal communication, 【M9】_________

by contrast, is only able to convey a limited number of thought (the 【M10】________

location of a source of food, for example, or the presence of a

predator).

【M2】