Linguistics

Which of these options is an example of a natural class of voiceless fricatives in English?

/f, s, θ, ∫, h/

When two sounds can never occur in the same environment, those two sounds are in ____________________.

Complementary distribution

When two sounds occur in the same environment and make a difference of meaning, those sounds are in ______________.

Contrastive distribution

A linguist would say English has 5 vowels -- a, e, i, o and u.

False

A linguist would say that [s] is a soft sound.

False

A linguist would say that the sound in 'beet' or 'bait' are long vowels.

False

Consider the sounds [e] vs. [ɑ] in [tometo] vs. [tomɑto]. The sounds are in contrastive distribution in a minimal pair.

False

IPA only works with Standard English. We can't use it to transcribe the different sounds of different dialects.

False

The allophones of a phoneme contrast. They occur in contrastive environments.

False

The words 'thin' and 'think' begin with two consonant sounds [t] and [h].

False

This is a hard one! Slow up! The sound in the word 'gym' is a velar stop

False

When we pronounce words, we pronounce each sound individually and no sound in a word influences the way the sounds around it are pronounced.

False

[e] has the sound of the vowel as in the word 'bet'.

False

The following word pairs illustrate what kind of distribution: [poteto] vs. [potɑto] [iðər] vs. [ɑjðər] [niðər] vs. [nɑjðər]

Free variation

When two sounds occur in the same environment and do NOT make a difference of meaning, those sounds are in ______________.

Free variation

The plural morpheme is phonetically conditioned. It's an example of morphophonology -- that is, the shape of the morpheme is influenced by the phonetic envirionment. Question: Which word below would take the plural allomorph [ɪz]?

House

A set of ___________ in a language is the set of distinctive, or contrastive, sounds in that language.

Phonemes

Alveolar, bilabial, and velar sounds are classified according to

Place of articulation

Allophones of a phoneme are the different realizations, or pronunciations, of a phoneme.

True

The surface form of a word is the pronunciation of a word as a result of the application of phonological rules to the underlying form.

True

Which of the following sounds is a stop?

[b]

Which option below is the best transcription for the word bright?

[braɪt] or [brajt]

Which of the following sounds is a fricative?

[f]

Which of the following sounds is velar?

[g]

Which of the following sounds is bilabial?

[p]

Which of the following sounds is voiceless?

[s]

Paying special attention to the way aspiration is applied to voiceless stops in English, which option below is the best transcription for the word spit?

[spIt]

Which of the following vowels is a lax vowel?

[ɛ]

Assume that the past tense morpheme has the following underlying form: /d/. When we say the words wish, kiss, talk, strip, preach in the past tense they sound like they have a [t] on the end. This fact represents what phonological process?

assimilation to voicing of the preceding consonant

As a result of the English allophonic rule that puts aspiration on voiceless stops in certain contexts, which of the following words is pronounced with an aspirated /p/?

pale

Consider the following sound alternation: reduce --> reduction Give the IPA symbol for the sound corresponding to 'c' in reduce and the 'c' in reduction

s, k

Which of the following pairs of words is an example of a minimal pair?

sleep and sleet

The sound [p] in [pin] is distinguished by the sound [b] in [bin] by what feature?

voicing

Which word below would take the past tense allomorph [t]?

walk

Which word is transcribed as [jæm]?

yam

In the dialects unit this semester, we learned about the "pin/pen" merger, in which the vowel sounds in pin and pen merge into one sound, whereas in bit and bet they remain distinct. Question: Using the IPA, transcribe the vowel sounds in 1) bit and 2) bet. These are the vowel sounds that would change in the pin/pen merger. Your answer should maintain that order of the sounds. The sound in bit and the sound in bet.

ɪ, ɛ

Which pair contains vowels that are both high and lax?

ɪ, ʊ