Unit 2 The Sounds of EnglishI. Decide whether each of the following statements is true or false:1 Of the three phonetics branches, the longest established one, and until recentlythe most highly developed, is acoustic phonetics2. Phones are the sounds that can distinguish meaning.3 sound(p)in the word “spit” is an inspirited stop4. Phonology is concerned with how the sounds can be classified into different categories.5 super segmental phonology refers to the study of phonological properties of unitslarger than the segment-phoneme, such as syllable, word and sentence6. A basic way to determine the phonemes of a language is to see if substituting onesound for another result in a change of meaning.7 The airstream provided by the lungs has undergo a number of modification to acquirethe quality of a speech sound8. When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segmentwhich occurs in the same place in the strings, the two words are said to form a phonemic contrast.9 Two sounds are in free variation when they occur in the same environment and donot contrast, namely, the substitution of one for the other does not produce different word, but merely a different pronunciation10. The rules governing the phonological patterning are language specific.11. Distinctive features of sound segments can be found running over a sequence oftwo or more phonemic segments.12. [i:] and [i] are allophones of the same phoneme.13. Not all English phonemes have allophones.Note: /N/ and /j/ occur in one single position and therefore do not have allophones.14. The same set of vowels is used in all languages.15. All syllables must contain at least one vowel.Note: Some syllables may contain no vowels. They may, instead, employ some syllabic consonant, as in people and muscle.16. The marking of word stress is arbitrary for the most part in English.17. English is a tone language.Note: Chinese is a tone language.II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given:1 When pitch, stress and sound length are tied to the sentence rather than the wordin isolation, they are collectively known as i_________.2 A _________ phonetics studies the movement of the vocal organs of producing thesounds of speech3 P___________ is a discipline which studies the system of sounds of a particularlanguage and how sounds are combined into meaningful units to effect linguistic communication.4 speech takes place when the organs of speech move to produce patterns of sound.There movements have an effect on the a__________ coming from the lungs5 The articulatory apparatus of a human being are contained in three importantcavities: the pharyngeal cavity, the o_______ cavity and the nasal cavity.6 Consonant sounds can be either v ________ or v________, while all vowel sounds arev__________7 T_______ is pitch variations, which are caused by the differing rates of vibrationof the vocal cords and which can distinguish meaning just like phonemes. <! [endif]>8 The qualities of vowels depend upon the position of the t _________and the lips9 Depending on the context in which stress is considered, there are two kinds ofStress: 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:10p ____________ is the smallest linguisticIII. There are four choices following each of the statements below. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement:1 Which one is different from the others according to places of articulation?A [z] B[w] C[b] D[v]2 Of all the speech organs, the _______ is/ are the most flexible.A. mouthB. lipsC. tongueD. vocal cords3 The sounds produced without the vocal cords vibrating are ____ sounds.A. voicelessB. voicedC. vowelD. consonantal4 which vowel is different from the others according to the characteristics of vowels?A [if:] B[u] C [e] D[i:]5 __________ is a voiced alveolar stop.A. /z/B. /d/C. /k/D./b/6 The assimilation rule assimilates one sound to another by “copying” a featureof a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones ____________.A. identicalB. sameC. exactly alikeD. similar7 Since /p/ and /b/ are phonetically similar, occur in the same environments and theycan distinguish meaning, they are said to beA. in phonemic contrastB. in complementary distributionC. the allophonesD. minimal pair8 Pitch variation is known as ________when its patterns are imposed on sentences.A intonationB toneC pronunciationD voice9 The sound /f/ is _________________.A. voiced palatal affricateB. voiced alveolar stopC. voiceless velar fricativeD. voiceless labiodentals fricative10 which branch of phonetics concern the production of speech sounds?A caustic phoneticsB articulatory phoneticsC auditory phoneticsD neither of themIV. Define the terms below:1. Free variation2. Allophone3 International Phonetic Alphabet4 intonation5. sonority scale6 phonemic contrast7 minimal pair8 rounded vowelV. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give ex&shy; amples for illustration if necessary:1 what is stress in a word? For words of more than one syllable, how are they pronounced?2 What are the major differences between phonology and phonetics?3. Illustrate with examples how suprasegmental features can affect meaning.4. What does speech sounds for human being?5 In what way can we determine whether a phone is a phoneme or not?6. A phoneme can be further analyzed into a set of distinctive features. For example, /p/ is defined as composed of such distinctive features as[plosive]+[bi-labial]+[breathed] because each of them can distinguish /p/ from some other phonemes. However, the property of aspiration contained in the allophone [ph] does not distinguish meaning and therefore is not a distinctive feature in this case.ASK:(1) What distinctive feature makes /f/ and /v/ different?(2) Can you specify the distinctive features for the following phonemes?(a) /F/ (b) /k/ (c) /n/7. Some phonetic transcriptions below are English words, some are not existing words but are possible words or nonsense words, and others are definitely “foreign” or impossible because they violate English sequential constraints. Specify each of the a-e cases as illustrated.Word Possible Foreign ReasonExample:[pa:k] park[tif] √[lkib] √ Initial [l] must precede a vowel.a. [ŋa:f]b. [ski:]c.[knait]d.[meij]e.[blaft]8. Collect some data to show that English advertisements, newspaper headlines, English songs, and presidentialaddressee sometimes make use of alliteration and rhyming.Unit 2 The Sounds of EnglishAnswer:I.Decide whether each of the following statements is True or False:1F 2F 3T 4F 5T 6T 7T 8F 9T 10 T 11 T 12F 13 T 14 T 15.F 16. F 17.F 18. FII.Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given:1 intonation 2articulatory 3 Phonology4 airstream5 oral 6voiced; voiceless;voiced7 tone 8 tongue 9 sentence10 phonemesIII.There are four choices following each of the statements below. Mark the choice that can best complete the statement1 B 2.C 3.A 4 B 5.B 6 D 7A 8A 9D 10 BIV. Define the terms below:1 free morpheme: Free morphemes are the morphemes which are independent units ofmeaning and can be used freely all by themselves or in combination with oth&shy;er morphemes.2 allophone: The different phones which can represent a phoneme in different phoneticenvironments are called the allophones of that phoneme.3 International phonetic alphabet: t is a standardized and internationally accepted systemof phonetic transcription.4 intonation: When pitch, stress and sound length are tied to the sentence rather thanthe word in isolation, they are collectively known as intonation.5 sonority scale:the sonority scale works in the combination of consonant .the degreeof sonority of different classes of sound affects their possible positions in the syllable. vowels are the most sonorous ones and approximants, nasals and fricatives follow vowels. stops are the least sonorous ones6phonemic 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.7 minimal pair: When two different forms are identical in every way except for onesound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two words are said to form a minimal pair.8 rounded vowel: one of the criteria used in the classification of vowels is the shapeof the lips. If a vowel is pronounced with the lips rounded, then the vowel in question is a rounded vowelV. Answer the following questions as comprehensively as possible. Give ex&shy; amples for illustration if necessary:1what is stress in a word? For words of more than one syllable, how are they pronounced?Stress refers to the degree of force used in producing a syllable, for words of more than one syllable, one is more stressed than the other .the more stressed syllable is the primary wile the less stressed syllable is known as the secondary stress2. 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 language form patterns and how these sounds are used to convey meaning in linguistic communication.3 Illustrate with examples how suprasegmental features can affect meaning.1) The location of stress in English distinguishes meaning, such as `import andimport. The similar alternation of stress also occurs between a compound noun anda phrase consisting of the same elements. A phonological feature of the Englishcompounds, is that the stress of the word always falls on the first element and the second element receives secondary stress, for example: `blackbird is aparticular 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 pronouncedWith 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 spokenin different tones, the same sequence of words may have different meanings.Generally speaking, the falling tone indicates that what is said is astraight-forward, matter-of-fact statement, the rising tone often makes aquestion of what is said, and the fall-rise tone often indicates that there is an implied message in what is said.4. What does speech sounds for human being?Human being are capable of making all kinds of sounds, but only some of there sounds have become units in the language sysem, there units are called speech sounds for human being5 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 substitutingone sound for other results in a change of meaning. If it does, the two sounds then represent different phonemes.6. (1) What distinctive feature makes /f/ and /v/ different?[voiced](2) Can you specify the distinctive features for the following phonemes?(a) /F/ [fricative] + [voiceless] + [palatal](b) /k/ [velar]+[voiceless]+[plosive](c) /n/ [nasal]+[voiced] +[alveolar]7. Some phonetic transcriptions below are English words, some are not existing wordsbut are possible words or nonsense words, and others are definitely “foreign”or impossible because they violate English sequential constraints. Specify each of the a-e cases as illustrated.Word Possible Foreign ReasonExample:[pa:k][tif][lkib]a. [ŋa:f] √ [N] must occur after a vowel.b. [ski:] skic.[knait] √d.[meij] √ [j] must occur initially before avowel.e.[blaft] √8. Collect some data to show that English advertisements, newspaper headlines, Englishsongs, and presidential addressee sometimes make use of alliteration and rhyming.OmitCopyright (C) 2009 南京农业大学外国。