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Phonemes Exercises: 1. Speech Sounds Are

1. The document discusses phonemes, which are the smallest units of sound that distinguish meaning in a language. Phonemes are abstract, while phones are the actual speech sounds. 2. Phonology is the study of how speech sounds function within a specific language. It examines patterns in a language's sound system. 3. Minimal pairs are pairs of words that differ by only one phoneme, like "fat" and "vat". They are used to identify phonemes within a language.

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808 views8 pages

Phonemes Exercises: 1. Speech Sounds Are

1. The document discusses phonemes, which are the smallest units of sound that distinguish meaning in a language. Phonemes are abstract, while phones are the actual speech sounds. 2. Phonology is the study of how speech sounds function within a specific language. It examines patterns in a language's sound system. 3. Minimal pairs are pairs of words that differ by only one phoneme, like "fat" and "vat". They are used to identify phonemes within a language.

Uploaded by

Nguyễn Hiền
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Phonemes exercises

1. Speech sounds are


a. Physical sound realities
b. Basic unit within phonetics
c. Can be examined without referring to a specific language system
d. All the above are true
2. ______ refers to how speech sounds function within a specific language
a. Speech sounds
b. Phonemes
c. Phonetics
d. Phonology
3. The study of phonology includes which topic?
a. Examining individual language sound patterns
b. Mapping out the possible ways that humans use speech organs to create sounds
c. Analyzing words to discover their meaningful parts
d. Both A and B
e. None of the above
5. The smallest unit of sound distinguishing meaning is called a .....
a. Phoneme
b. Phone
c. Morpheme
d. Allophone
6. The smallest unit of sound that is segmentable in the sound stream is called a ...
7. Allophones are realizational variants of ......
a. A phoneme
b. A morth
c. A morpheme
d. A phone
8. Which of the following is closest to the minimal pair?

a. fat–hit
b. fat-vat
c. fat–cat
d. fat–kit

9. Which of the following processes that may happen to the voiced alveolar stop [ g ] in
this context: My grandfather has a dog [maɪ ˈgrændˌfɑːðə hæz ə dɒg]
a. [ g ] may be devoiced after the vowel [ɒ ]
b. [ g ] may be devoiced at the end of the word [dɒg ]
c. [ g ] may be labialised after the vowel [ɒ ]
d. [ g ] may be voiced at the end of the word [dɒg ]

10. Which of the following is the phonetic transcription of this form “tank”?

a. [ ' tængk]
b. [ ' tænk ]
c. [ ' tæŋk ]
d. ['thæŋk ]

11. Which of the following phonetic variations that may happen to the lateral [ l ] in this
context: [ˈæŋkl] ankle
a. [ l ] becomes devoiced after voiced stop [ k ]
b. [ l ] becomes syllabic after voiced stop [ k ]
c. [ l ] becomes unaspirated after voiced stop [ k ]
d. [ l] becomes aspirated after voiced stop [ k ]

12. Which of the following is the minimal pair?

a. there - bet
b. dab - bad
c. bad - bet
d. there–dare

13. Which of the following phonetic variations that may happen to the lateral [ l ] in this
context: [ ‘æŋgl ] angle ?

a. [ l ] becomes aspirated after voiced stop [g]


b. [ l ] becomes unaspirated after velar [g]
c. [ l ] becomes devoiced after voiced stop [g]
d. [ l ] becomes syllabic after voiced stop [g]

14. Which of the following is the phonetic transcription of this form peace talk?

h
a. [p i:s tɔ:k]
b. [pi:s tɔ:lk]
h h
c. [p i:s t ɔ:lk]
h
d. [pi:s t ɔ:lk]

15. Which of the following phonetic variations that may happen to the voiced stop [ d ] in
this context : [ li:d ] lead ?

a. [ d ] is aspirated after the front vowel [ i:]


b. [ d ] is devoiced after the long vowel [ i:]
c. [ d ] is devoiced word finally
d. [ d ] is unaspirated in the final position of a stressed syllable

16. How many phonemes in the word "box"?


17. How many phonemes in the English language
a. 26
b. 40
c. 44
d. no one really knows
18. Matching

phoneme 1. the difference between /f/ and /v/ or /b/ and /p/
voice 2. the study of the sounds of a language

consonant 3. words which are distinguished by only a single


phoneme

stress 4. smallest unit of meaningful sound

vowels 5. changes in pitch

intonation 6. the /l/ sound in lip vs. the /l/ sound in pool

minimal pairs 7. looks like a consonant, sounds like a vowel

phonology
19. Are the 8. sounds made by restricting air flow
following pairs
allophones
of words minimal
9. sounds made by non-restricted air flow
pairs?
semi-vowel 10. emphasis on a word or syllable
a. two words with different meanings that are identical except for one sound
segment that occurs in the same place in each word.
b. two words with identical meanings that are identical except for one sound
segment that occurs in the same place in each word.
c. two words with different meanings that are identical except for one sound
segment that occurs anywhere in each word.
d. two words that are identical for all sound segments.
20. Variants of a phoneme are:
1. minimal pairs.
2. homorganics.
3. allophones.
4. allomorphs.
21. [pʰ] as in pin and [p] as in spin are ............. for the phoneme /p/ in English because
they cannot distinguish words 
22. The branch of linguistics that studies human speech and concerns with the
physical properties of the sound is .......................
23. The study of human speech sounds in a language that form systematized patterns
is called ..................
24. ...................... are the abstractions of speech unit which differ one meaning from
another.
25. The speech sounds produced by pushing the air stream through the mouth are
called ............
26. Fill in the blanks (a modified sentence from Wikipedia, use the following terms:
phone, phoneme, allophone and minimal pair).
a. In human language, a…………. is the smallest unit of speech that distinguishes
meaning. ………….. are not the physical segments themselves, but abstractions of
them. ………….. are usually indicated by two slashes (e.g., /a/). An example of a(n)
………….would be the /t/ found in words like tip [t hIp], writer [wrait], and cat
[kæt]. In contrast, …………. is the physical acoustic sound and is indicated by two
square brackets (e.g., [a]).

b. In English, [p] and [ph] are …………. since we cannot observe any ………….pair
between those two consonants. However, in other languages such as Hindi, [p] and
[ph] can be) …………... In Hindi, [pal] means ’nature’ while [p hal]means ’knife
blade’. Since there is a minimal pair between [p] and [p h], we can conclude that[p]
and [ph] are) ………….in Hindi.

27. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word.


a. ______ phoneticians try to describe the physical properties of the stream of sounds
which a speaker issues
b. If, in making a vowel sound, the organs of speech remain in one position without
moving to another, the result is a __________. If the organs of speech start in the
position for one vowel and then immediately glide to the position of another, the
result is a __________.

c. All English sound except [m], [n] [ŋ] are made with the velum _____.

d. IPA indicates _____ ______ ______.

e. The basic unit in phonology is ______.

f. An aspirated [ph]; an unaspirated [po] and an unreleased [p] are ______ of the
_____/p/

28. Transcribe the following phrased using (a) broad transcription and (b) a narrow
transcription”

“Please come home”


a)
b)
“He is going by train”
a)
b)
“The angry American”
a)
b)
“His knowledge is truth”
a)
b)
“I prefer sugar and cream”
a)
b)
“Sarah took pity on the young children’
a)
b)
29. Which are minimal pairs
a. slight/spit
b. light/late
c. won/one
30.Which are minimal pairs
a. stint/shrimp
b. par/per
c. butter/bother
31. Which are minimal pairs
a. moon/mind
b. eyes/ice
c. are/hare
32. Which are minimal pairs
a. flour/flower
b. peers/pierce
c. teeth/sleet
33. Which are minimal pairs
a. paper/pebble
b. sound/sand
c. soup/slip
34.Which are minimal pairs?
a. spark/stark
b. post/port
c. ear/heard
35.Which are minimal pairs?
a. live/lift
b. love/loaf
c. cheap/sheep
36.
Which are minimal pairs?
a. pant/pair
b. slick/slit
c. sent/sand
37.Which are minimal pairs?
a. flame/phlegm
b. pain/pant
c. stair/tar
38.
Which are minimal pairs?
a. two/too
b. heart/chart
c. groom/grump

39.Vowels are _______________________ before the voiceless consonants p,t,k, than


they are before the voiced consonants b,d,g,
40.The abstract unit or sound type is called ..........................
41. Pit" and "bit" are two words in English differentiated by a single sound contrast
between the /p/ and the /b/. This means that /p/ and /b/ are ________ in English.
42.Plosives are always aspirated
43. If you exchange one sound for another in a word and the meaning does NOT change,
then the two sounds are allophones of the same phoneme

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