Keys to Phonology (1)
I.
1~5
ACDAA
6~10 DBABB
II.
11~15 TTTFF
16~20 TTTFF
III.
21. voiced, voiceless, voiced
22. friction
23. tongue
24. height
25. obstruction
26. minimal pairs
27. diphthongs
28. Co-articulation
29. Phonemes
30. air stream
IV.
31.
Sound assimilation: Speech sounds seldom occur in isolation. In
connected speech, under the influence of their neighbors, are replaced by
other sounds. Sometimes two neighboring sounds influence each other
and are replaced by a third sound which is different from both original
sounds.
This
process
is
called
sound
assimilation.
32.
Suprasegmental feature: The phonetic features that occur above
the level of the segments are called suprasegmental features; these are the
phonological properties of such units as the syllable, the word, and the
sentence. The main suprasegmental ones includes stress, intonation, and
tone.
33.
Complementary distribution: The different allophones of the
same phoneme never occur in the same phonetic context. When two or
more allophones of one phoneme never occur in the same linguistic
environment they are said to be in complementary distribution.
34.
Distinctive features: It refers to the features that can distinguish
one phoneme from another. If we can group the phonemes into two
categories: one with this feature and the other without, this feature is
called
a
distinctive
feature.
V.
35.
Acoustic phonetics deals with the transmission of speech sounds through
the air. When a speech sound is produced it causes minor air disturbances
(sound waves). Various instruments are used to measure the
characteristics
of
these
sound
waves.
36.
When the vocal cords are spread apart, the air from the lungs passes
between them unimpeded. Sounds produced in this way are described as
voiceless; consonants [p, s, t] are produced in this way. But when the
vocal cords are drawn together, the air from the lungs repeatedly pushes
them apart as it passes through, creating a vibration effect. Sounds
produced in this way are described as voiced. [b, z, d] are voiced
consonants.
Keys to Phonology(2)
I. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False:
l.T
11.F
T
2.F
3.F
12.T
4.F
13.F
5.T 6.T
14.F
7.F
15.F
16. F
8.F 9.T
17. T
10.F
18. F
19. T
20.
II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with
the letter given:
21. Aspiration
22.Articulatory
26. stop 27. Suprasegmental
intonation
31. Phonology
32. oral
23. bilabial
28. sequential
33. Tone
24. tongue
29. narrow
25. place
30.
34. sentence
III. There are four choices following each of the statements below. Mark
the choice that can best complete the statement:
35.C
.D
36.A
37.B
38.D
39.A
40.D 41.C
42.C
43.D
44
IV. Define the terms below:
45. phonology: Phonology studies the system of sounds of a particular
language; it aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form
patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic
communication.
46. phoneme: The basic unit in phonology is called phoneme; it is a unit
of distinctive value. But it is an abstract unit. To be exact, a phoneme is
not a sound; it is a collection of distinctive phonetic features.
47. allophone: The different phones which can represent a phoneme in
different phonetic environments are called the allophones of that
phoneme.
48. international phonetic alphabet: It is a standardized and
internationally accepted system of phonetic transcription.
49. intonation: When pitch, stress and sound length are tied to the
sentence rather than the word in isolation, they are collectively known as
intonation.
50. phonetics: Phonetics is defined as the study of the phonic medium of
language; it is concerned with all the sounds that occur in the world' s
languages
51. auditory phonetics: It studies the speech sounds from the hearer's
point of view. It studies how the sounds are perceived by the hear-er.
52. acoustic phonetics: It studies the speech sounds by looking at the
sound waves. It studies the physical means by which speech sounds are
transmitted through the air from one person to another.
53. phone : Phones can be simply defined as the speech sounds we use
when speaking a language. A phone is a phonetic unit or segment. It does
not necessarily distinguish meaning.
54. phonemic contrast: Phonemic contrast refers to the relation between
two phonemes. If two phonemes can occur in the same environment and
distinguish meaning, they are in phonemic contrast.
55. tone: Tones are pitch variations, which are caused by the differing
rates of vibration of the vocal cords.
56. minimal pair: When two different forms are identical in every way
except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the
strings, the two words are said to form a minimal pair.
V. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give
ex-amples for illustration if necessary:
57. Of the two media of language, why do you think speech is more basic
than writing ?
1) In linguistic evolution, speech is prior to writing.
2) In everyday communication, speech plays a greater role than writing in
terms of the amount of information conveyed.
3) Speech is always the way in which every native speaker acquires his
mother tongue, and writing is learned and taught later at school.
58. What are the criteria that a linguist uses in classifying vowels ?
1) Vowels may be distinguished as front, central and back in terms of the
position of the tongue in the mouth.
2) According to how wide our mouth is opened, we classify the vowels
into four groups: close vowels, semi-close vowels, semi-open vowels, and
open vowels.
3) According to the shape of the lips, vowels are divided into rounded
vowels and unrounded vowels.
4) The English vowels can also be classified into long vowels and short
vowels according to the length of the sound.
59. What are the major differences between phonology and phonetics ?
They differ in their approach and focus. Phonetics is of a general nature;
it is interested in all the speech sounds used in all human languages: how
they are produced, how they differ from each other, what phonetic
features they possess, how they can be classified. Phonology, on the other
hand, is interested in the system of sounds of a particular language; it
aims to discover how speech sounds in a language form patterns and how
these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.
60. Illustrate with examples how suprasegmental features can affect
meaning.
1) The location of stress in English distinguishes meaning, such as
`import and im`port. The similar alternation of stress also occurs between
a compound noun and a phrase consisting of the same elements. A
phonological feature of the English compounds, is that the stress of the
word always falls on the first element and the second element receives
secondary stress, for example: `blackbird is a particular kind of bird,
which is not necessarily black, but a black `bird is a bird that is black.
2) The more important words such as nouns, verbs adjectives ,
adverbs,etc are pronounced with greater force and made more prominent.
But to give special emphasis to a certain notion, a word in sentence that is
usually unstressed can be stressed to achieve different effect. Take the
sentence “He is driving my car.” for example. To emphasize the fact that
the car he is driving is not his, or yours, but mine, the speaker can stress
the possessive pronoun my, which under normal circumstances is not
stressed.
3) English has four basic types of intonation, known as the four tones:
When spoken in different tones, the same sequence of words may have
different meanings. Generally speaking, the falling tone indicates that
what is said is a straight-forward, matter-of-fact statement, the rising tone
often makes a question of what is said, and the fall-rise tone often
indicates that there is an implied message in what is said.
61. In what way can we determine whether a phone is a phoneme or not ?
A basic way to determine the phonemes of a language is to see if
substituting one sound for another results in a change of meaning. If it
does, the two sounds then represent different phonemes.