Chapter2Phonology.doc

Chapter 2 Phonology

I. Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False
1. Voicing is a phonological feature that distinguishes meaning in both Chinese and English.
2. If two phonetically similar sounds occur in the same environments and they distinguish meaning, they are said to be in complementary meaning.
3. A phone is a phonetic until that distinguishes meaning.
4. English is a tone language while Chinese is not.
5. In linguistic evolution, speech is prior to writing.
6. In everyday communication, speech plays a greater role than writing in terms of the amount of information conveyed.
7. Articulatory phonetics tries to describe the physical properties of the stream of sounds which a speaker issues with the help of a machine called spectrograph.
8. The articulatory apparatus of a human being are contained in three important areas: the throat, the mouth and the chest.
9. Vibration of the vocal cords results in a quality of speech sounds called voicing.
10. English consonants can be classified in terms of place of articulation and the part of the tongue that is raised the highest.
11. According to the manner of articulation, some of the type into which the consonants can be classified are stops, fricatives, bilabial and alveolar.
12. Vowel sounds can be differentiated by a number of factors: the position of tongue in the mouth, the openness of the mouth, the shape of the lips, and the length of the vowels.
13. According to the shape of the lips, vowels can be classified into close vowels, semi-vowels and open vowels.
14. Any sound produced by a human being is a phoneme.
15. Phones are the sounds that can distinguish meaning.
16. Phonology is concerned with how the sounds can be classified into different categories.
17. 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.
18. 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 phonemic contrast.
19. The rules governing the phonological patterning are language specific.
20. Distinctive features of sound segments can be found running over a sequence of two or more phonemic segments.

II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given

21. A____________ refers to a strong puff of air stream in the production of speech sounds.
22. A____________phonetics describes the way our speech organs work to produce the speech sounds and how they differ.
23. The four sounds /p/, /b/, /m/, /w/ have one feature in common, i.e, they are all b______sounds.
24. Of all the speech organs, the t__________ is the most flexible, and is responsible for varieties of articulation than any other.
25. English consonants can be classified in terms of manner of articulation or in terms of p______ of articulation.
26. When the obstruction created by the speech organs is total or complete, the speech sound produced with the obstruction audibly released and the air passing out again is called a s__________.
27. S__________ features are the phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments. They include stress tone, intonation, etc.
28. The rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language are called s_______ rules.
29. The transcription of speech sounds with letter-symbols only is called broad transcription while the transcription with letter-symbols together with the diacritics is called n___________ transcription.
30. When pitch, stress and sound length are tied to the sentence rather than the word in isolation, they are collectively known as i____________.
31. P__________ is a discipline which studies the system of sounds of a particular language and how sounds are combined into meaningful units to effect linguistic communication.
32. The articulatory apparatus of a human being are contained in three important cavities: the pharyngeal cavity, the o________cavity and the nasal cavity.
33. T___________ are pitch variations, which are caused by the differing rates of vibration of the vocal cords and which can distinguish meaning just like phonemes.
34. Depending on the context in which stress is considered, there are two kinds of stress: word stress and s__________ stress.

III. There are four choices following each of the statements below. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement.

35. Of all the speech organs, the ___________ is/are the most flexible.
A. mouth B. lips C. tongue D. vocal cords
36. The sounds produced without the vocal cords vibrating are __________ sounds.
A. voiceless B. voiced C. vowel D. consonantal
37. ____________is voiced alveolar stop.
A. /z/ B. /d/ C. /k/ D. /b/
38. The assimilation rule assimilates one sound to another by “copying” a feature of a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones _______________.
A. identical B. same C. exactly alike D. similar
39. Since /p/ and /b/ are phonetically similar, occur in the same environments and they can distinguish meaning, they are said to be ______________.
A. in phonemic contrast B. in complementary distribution
C. the allophones D. minimal pair
40. The sound /f/ is ___________________-.
A. voiced palatal affricate B. voice alveolar stop
C. voiceless velar fricative D. voiceless labio-dental fricative
41. A _____________ vowel is one that is produced with the front part of the tongue maintaining the highest position.
A. back B. central C. front D. middle
42. Distinctive features can be found running over a sequence of two or more phonemic segments. The phonemic features that occur above the level of the segments are called______________.
A. phonetic components B. immediate constituents
C. suprasegmental features D. semantic features
43. A(n) _____________ is a unit that is of distinctive value. It is an abstract unit, a collection of distinctive phonetic features.
A. phone B. sound C. allophone D. phoneme
44. The different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the ____________ of that phoneme.
A. phones B. sounds C. phonemes D. allophones
45. Which pair of words is NOT a minimal pair?
A. cat / bat B. put / but C. jig /pig D. sit / bit
46. If two sounds are in complementary distribution, they are ___________ of the same phoneme.
A. symbols B. allophones C. phones D. signs
47. Of the following sound combinations, only______________ is permissible.
A. kibl B. bkil C. ilkb D. ilbk
48. Where are the vocal cords?
A. In the mouth B. In the nasal cavity C. Above the tongue D. Inside the larynx.
49. In the production of consonants at least ___________ articulators (发音器官) are involved.
A. one B. two C. three D. four
50. Which is not true for the vowel〔i〕？
A. High B. Unrounded C. Middle D. Front.
51. The distinction between vowels and consonants lies in _______________.
A. the place of articulation B. the obstruction of airstreams
C. the position of the tongue D. the shape of the lips
52. ____________ sounds are produced with the back of the tongue and the soft palate.
A. Velar B. Palatal C. Glottal D. Alveolar
53. Where is the primary stress of the word “phonology”?
A. pho B. no C. lo D. gy
54. Which is the common feature of the three sounds: 〔b〕, 〔p〕,〔m〕?
A. Voiceless B. Voiced C. Nasal D. Bilabial.
55. Which of the following English sounds is NOT bilabial?
A. 〔b〕 B. 〔m〕 C. 〔p〕 D. 〔f〕
56. Which of the following is a voiceless bilabial stop?
A. 〔w〕 B. 〔m〕 C. 〔b〕 D. 〔p〕
57. _____________ is the study of the physical properties of the sounds produced in speech.
A. Auditory phonetics B. Articulatory phonetics
C. Acoustic phonetics D. Phonology
58. /kuku:/ is a bird’s call. The name of such a bird is CUCKOO which is an example of _______.
A. language universals B. onomatopoeia
C. teaching grammars D. morphs
59. 〔f,v〕are both labiodentals and______________.
A. nasals B. fricatives C. affricatives D. alveolar
60. In the field of phonology, which of the following does NOT belong to the suprasegmental features?
A. stress B. tone. C. intonation D. syllable.
61. Classification of vowels is made up of the followings EXCEPT _______________.
A. the position of the tongue B. the openness of the mouth
C. the shape of the lip D. the width of the vowels
62. A sound which is capable of distinguishing one word or one shape of a word from another in a given language is a _________________.
A. phoneme B. allophone C. phone D. allomorph
63. /p,t,k/ are _______________.
A. fricatives B. affricatives C. glides D. stops
64. The vowel 〔u:〕in〔fu:d〕(food) is a _________ vowel.
A. back B. front C. unrounded D. central
65. The different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phonetic environments are called the ___________ of that phoneme.
A. minimal B. allomorph C. phones D. allophones
IV. Define the terms below.

66. phonology 67. phoneme 68. allophone 70. intonation
71 phonetics 72. auditory phonetics 73. acoustic phonetics 74. phone
75. tone 76 phonemic contrast 78. minimal pair 79. free distribution
80. complementary distribution

V. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give examples for illustration if necessary.
81. Of the two media of language, why do you think speech is more basic than writing?
82. What are the crieria that a linguist uses in classifying vowels?
83. What are the major differences between phonology and phonetics?
84. Illustrate with examples how suprasegmental feature can affect meaning.
85. In what way can we determine whether a phone is a phoneme or not?
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