Exercises of
Linguistics
Chapter 2
Multiple choices (3*15=45
鈥?/p>
)
1. Which of the following feature cannot be used to describe English consonants?
A. voiceless
B. oral
C. alveolar
D. lateral
2. Which of the following statements about allophone is NOT correct?
A. Allophones are different forms of the same phoneme
B. Allophones of the same phoneme are in complementary distribution.
C. Allophones distinguish meaning.
D. Allophones are language-specific.
3. The word _____ contains a high vowel.
A.
mat
B.
mud
C.
dot
D.
boot
4. Phoneticians adopt the following standards in describing English consonants. Which of the following is
NOT correct about [s] sound?
A. fricative
B. voiceless
C. alveolar
D. affricate
5. The syllabic structure of
鈥?/p>
blade
鈥?/p>
can be described as______.
A. CCVC
B. CCVCV
C. CVC
D. CVCV
6. _______ refers to the change of a sound as a result of the influence of an adjacent sound.
A. Addition of sound
B. Loss of sound
C. Assimilation
D. Metathesis
7. Assimilation includes the following phenomena except________.
A. nasalization
B. palatalization
C. dentalization
D. transmutation
8. Which of the following statements is correct? (
)
A. Diacritics added to letter-symbols bring out finer distinctions than the letters alone can do.
B. The lips are the most flexible part in articulation, only secondary to tongue.
C. The [e] sound in English is a front, semi-close, unrounded, tense vowel.
D. Minimal pairs are created in order to show the distinctive value of one phone.
9. Which is not a suprasegmental feature? (
)
A. stress
B. tone
C. intonation
D. conjuncture
10. About phone, phoneme and allophone, which statement is wrong? (
)
A. Phones are speech sounds we actually hear and produce during linguistic communication.
B. Phones do not necessarily have distinctive values but phonemes do.
C. Allophones in some cases also have distinctive values.
D. Phones in complementary distribution are not necessarily allophones.
11. Which one is different from the others according to the characteristics of vowels?
A. [i:]
B. [
忙
]
C. [e]
D. [I]
12. _____ doesn
鈥?/p>
t form a minimal pair.
A. meter-metre
B. ill-is
C. pad-pat
D. ton-tongue
13. Conventionally, a ____ is put in slashes (/ /).
A. allophone
B. phone
C. phoneme
D. morpheme
14. In the word______, [l] is velarized.
A. lead
B. steal
C. lethal
D. glide
15. There are ____ syllables and _____ phonemes in the word
gentlemanly
.
A. 4, 9
B. 3, 10
C. 4, 10
D. 3, 9
Blank-filling (2*10=20
鈥?/p>
)
16. If a sound can be a substitute for the other in a word in the same environment without changing the meaning,
the two sounds are in__________
_________
(two words).
17. The maximal numbers of consonants in coda position and onset position are respectively _____ and_____ (e.g.
________ and _______).
18.
The
[g]
sound
is
silent
in
design
and
paradigm
but
present
in
their
corresponding
forms
signature
and
paradigmatic
. This is due to a _______ rule which could be stated as: when occurring before a final consonant, a
[g] sound is not pronounced.
19. In terms of places of articulation, [
胃
] and [冒
] can be classified into the category _______.
20. __________ is the smallest linguistic unit which has distinctive value.
21. When the vocal cords are apart, the air can pass through easily and the sound produced is said to be _______.
True or false (T for true and F for false 1*10=10
鈥?/p>
)
22. Linguists are concerned with all the sounds produced by the human speech organs.
(
)
23. English has four basic types of intonation. (
)
24. Suprasegmental features cannot distinguish meaning. (
)
25. Phonology is language specific but phonetics is not. (
)
26. Acoustic phonetics is concerned with the perception of speech sounds. (
)
27. The stress can be laid on different syllables of a word, resulting in different meanings. (
)
28. Because of assimilation, the negative forms of
legal
and
possible
are
illegal
and
impossible
. (
)
29. All vowels are voiceless. (
)
30. [m] sound is both a labiodental and a nasal. (
)
31. The sound segments are grouped into consonants and vowels. (
)
Brief definitions (3*5=15
鈥?/p>
)
32. phonology
33. articulatory phonetics
34. complementary distribution
Sound Description (2*5=10
鈥?/p>
)
Describe the following speech sounds according to the criteria that we have learnt.
35. [
螞
]____________________________________________
36. [ j ]____________________________________________
37. [d
蕭
]____________________________________________
38. [ h ]____________________________________________
39. [ I ]____________________________________________