KEY TO AN INTRODUCTION TO LANGUAGE

PART 1- Decide whether the sentences are TRUE (T) or FALSE (F)
1. Articulatory phonetics studies the way in which speech sounds are produced. ______ T
2. The tongue is the passive articulator. ________________ F
3. Allophones of a phoneme are predictable phonetic variants of that morpheme. _______ T
4. Speech sounds which are produced with the vocal cords vibrating are called “voiced”
_________ T
5. The falling intonation is expressed in the following utterance. Are you English? ______ F
6. Closing diphthongs end with the vowel / ə/ ________________ F
7. Vowels can form a syllable on their own or they can be the “centre” of a syllable. __ T
8. Assimilation does not have anything to do with vowels. ______ F
9. The meaning of underlined morpheme “Mal” in the word Malfunction is good ____ F
10. Morphemes that change the meaning or lexical category of the words to which they attach
are called inflectional morphemes. _______________ F
11. Articulatory phonetics is the study of the transmission that focuses on the physical
properties of sounds. ___________F
12. The glottis is the active articulator. ________________ T
13. The difference between close and open vowels is the difference of the tongue height.
_______ T
14. Speech sounds which are produced with the vocal cords vibrating are called “voiceless”
_________ F
15. The rising intonation is expressed in the following utterance. Do you speak English?
____________ T
16. Closing triphthongs end with the vowel / ə/ ________________T
17. m, n and ŋ can occur initially _________________F
18. A dental sound is a speech sound which is produced by the lower lip touching the upper
teeth. ______F
19.
20. Coda is the final consonant of a syllable __________________F
21. Morphemes that change the meaning or lexical category of the words to which they attach
are called inflectional morphemes. _______________ F
22. Auditory phonetics is the study of transmission that focuses on the physical properties of
sounds. ___________F
 23. The glottis is the passive articulator. ________________ T
24. In long words, the syllable with the greatest prominence has the primary stress and the
next stressed syllable has the secondary stress. ______ F
25. Based on which part of the tongue is raised, vowels are classified into close and open
vowels _________ F
26. The rising intonation is expressed in the following utterance. Where did you go last night?
____________ F
27. Assimilation does not have anything to do with vowels. ________T
28. A phrase is a group of words consisting of a noun and all its modifiers _____________F
29. A dental sound is a speech sound which is produced by the lower lip touching the upper
teeth. ______F
30. Coda is the final consonant of a syllable __________________F
31. All voiceless fricatives are aspirated when they occur before stressed vowels at the
beginning of syllables _______________ F
PART 2 - Fill in each gap with one or two words to complete the following definitions.
1. Two words that differ only by a single sound in the same position and have different
meanings but are otherwise identical are called ______________________ minimal pair
2. Lexical words are the words with a _________________meaning. dictionary
3. A phoneme is the smallest sound unit in a language that is capable of
___________________ a distinct meaning, such as the s of sing and the r of ring or the
smallest segment of sound that comprises the basic building blocks of a language.
Conveying
4. We can produce different vowels by changing the shape of the _________. tongue
5. ______________________is the process of forming of new word from the one that looks
like its derivative. Back-information
6. A phrase is a group of words consisting of a noun and all its ________modifiers
7. __________________ is a comparison of unlike things without using a word of
comparison such as “like or as”. metaphor
8. Stress can be achieved by _______________, length, sound quality and loudness. Pitch

9. The main difference between phonetics and phonology is that phonetics analyzes the
production of all human speech sounds while phonology analyzes the
__________________of a particular language sound patterns
10. When a speech sound changes, and becomes more like another sound which follows it or
precedes it, this is called _______________________ assimilation
11. _______________is the process of forming of a new word by annexing affixes to a stem.
Derivation
 12. A ____________________is a combination of two vowels pronounced within one
syllable. diphthong
13. The seven main organs used in producing speech are the tips, the teeth, the tongue, the
alveolar ridge, the hard palate, the soft palate and the __________________ pharynx
14. If the compounds function as adverbs, the stress goes on the _________second element
15. A __________________________is a “strong” consonant produced by increased tension
in the vocal apparatus. These strong consonants tend to be long, voiceless, aspirated and
high.
fortis consonant
16. The speech sound changes when the phoneme that comes first is affected by the one that
comes after it and this is called _______________________ Regressive assimilation.
17. _______________is the process of forming of a new word by combining the initial letters
of words in a phrase or cluster of words. Acronym
18. Morphemes that serve purely grammatical functions, never creating a new word but only a
different of the same word are called ___________________inflectional morphemes
19. The seven main organs used in producing speech are the tips, the teeth, the tongue, the
alveolar ridge, the hard palate, the ________________or soft palate and the larynx.
velum
20. The sounds are produced with the contact made between lower lip and upper teeth are
called ___________labio-dental
PART 3- Explain the difference(s) between the underlined sounds in each pair below.
1. cats – dogs
- The /s/ in “cats” is voiceless.
- The /z/ in “dogs” is voiced.
2. call – love
- /l/ in “call” is dark because it is at the end of the word.
- /l/ in “glove” is clear because it precedes a vowel
3. steak – take
- /t/ in “steak is unaspirated because it is preceded by s
- /t/ in “take” is aspirated because it is at the beginning of the word.
4. heard – search
- /3:/ in “search” is shorter than / 3:/ in “heard” because it precedes a fortis consonant
/ʧ/.
- / 3:/ in “heard’ is longer than / 3:/ in “search” because it precedes a lenis consonant /d/
5. bath – bathe
- The [θ] in “bath” is voiceless
- The [ð] in “bathe” is voiced
6. seek – key
- /k/ in “seek” is unaspirated because it is at the end of the word.
- /k/ in “key” is aspirated because it is at the beginning of the word.
 7. compare – spare
- /p/ in “compare” is aspirated because it is at the beginning of the stressed syllable
- /p/ in “spare” is unaspirated because it is preceded by s
8. shape - same
- /ei/ in “shape” is shorter than / ei / in “same” because it precedes a fortis consonant /p/
and / ei / in “same’ precedes a lenis consonant /m/
9. close - lose
- /l/ in “close” is devoiced because it follows fortis consonant /k/
- /l/ in “lose” is voiced because it is at the beginning of the word.
10. food – flood
- ‘oo’ in “food” is a long close/high back rounded vowel /u:/
-‘oo’ in “flood” is a short open/low central vowel /Ʌ/
PART 4 - Give the description of the following vowel and consonant sounds
1. /ɪ/ : short high front unrouded vowel
2. /ɔ:/: long mid back rounded vowel
3. /b/: voiced bilabial stop/plosive
4. /ʤ/: voiced palato-alveolar affricate
5. /ʃ/ : voiceless palato-alveolar fricative
6. /m/: voiced bilabial nasal
7. /u:/ : long high back rounded vowel
8. /ə/ : short mid central neutral vowel
9 ./f/ : voiceless labial dental fricative
10. /a:/ : long low back neutral vowel
PART 5 – Indicate the grammatical categories of each of the word in the following
sentences.
1. The girls love Sushi. (DET, N, V, N)
2. That boy has won many games. (DET, N, AUX, V, DET, N)
3. Mary will finish her homework in the library. (N, AUX, V, DET, N, P, DET, N)
4. A strong wind uprooted the tall trees. (DET, A, N,V, DET, A, N)
5. My dog is exceptionally smart (DET, N, V, ADV, A)
6. The man with a wooden leg ate my hamburger. (DET, N, P, DET, A, N, V, DET, N)
7. You should put paint on the sound wood. (PRN, AUX, V, N, P, DET, A, N)
8. She might drive down my street. (PRN, AUX, V, P, DET, N)
 9. Careful owners must wash their cars. (A, N, AUX, V, DET, N)
10. John fills the best duvets. (N, V, DET, A, N)
11. That man wears sweaters with stripes. (DET, N, V, N, P, N)
12. My friends ate a small snack in the park at lunch. (DET, N, V, DET, A, N, P, DET, N, P, N)
13. Barack Obama became the new President of the United States. (N, V, DET, A,
N, P, DET, N)
14. The customer handed the cashier her money. (DET, N, V, DET, N, DET,N)
15. We walked in the park with our teacher. (PRN, V, P, DET, N, P, DET,N)
PART 6 – The following sentences have certain presuppositions that ensure their
appropriateness. What are they?
1. “I think I will have good result for the examination”
- The hearer knows what the examination refers to
- The speaker has taken part in the examination.
2. “If only she had not returned there”
- The hearer knows who “she” refers to and where “there” refers to
- She had returned there.
- She had been there at least once
3. “Walther’s niece bought a white rabbit again”
- The hearer knows who “Walther’s niece” is.
- Walther has a niece.
- Walther’s niece bought a white rabbit at least once.
4. “When did she start writing her research paper? ”
- The hearer knows who “she” refers to.
- She has a research paper to write.
- She has not written a research paper before.
- She started writing a research paper.
5. “Jane no longer wrote her former basketball teammates.”
- The hearer knows who “Jane” refers to.
- Jane used to play basketball in a team
- Jane used to write to her former basketball teammates
6. “We regret telling her the news”
- The hearer knows who “we” and “her” refer to
- We told the news.
 7. “They act as if they were my parents”
- The hearer knows who “they” refer to
- They are not my parents.
8. “Have some more tea”
- The hearer has had some tea before that.
9. “He pretends to be ill”
- The hearer knows who “he” refers to
- He is not ill
10. “Try to give up smoking”
- The hearer has been smoking
11. “John sent his application to Mary’s company”
- The hearer knows who “John” and “Mary” refer to
- John was applying for a job
- Mary works at a company.
12. “Jane’s cat is missing”
13. “My sister is going to graduate from university”
- The hearer knows who “my sister” refers to
- I have a sister.
- My sister has not graduated from university yet.
14. “We are going to be teachers of English”
- The hearer knows who “we” refer to.
- We haven’t been teachers of English yet.
15. “Peter stopped smoking”
- The hearer knows who “Peter” refers to
- Presupposes that John used to smoke

PART 7. IMPLICATURE
Write down one implicature that can be drawn from the second speaker’s response in each of the
following conversations.
1. Mary: “Did you manage to fix that leak?”
Jim: “I tried to”
Jim’s utterance may implicate that he was not successful in fixing the leak despite his efforts.
2. Steve: “What happened to your flowers?”
Jane: “A dog got into the garden”
Jane’s utterance may implicate that the dog damaged the flowers.
3. Laura: “Who used all the printer paper”
Dick: “I used some of it”
Dick’s utterance may implicate that he did not use all the printer paper, but he used some.
4. Gina: “I hear you’re always late with the rent”
Robin: “well, sometimes I am”
Robin ’s utterance may implicate that it is true that sometimes he is late with the rent.
5. Jenny: “Mike and Annie should be here by now. Was their plane late?”
Alfred: “Possibly”
Alfred’s utterance may implicate that he thinks the plane might be late.
6. Gwen: “This cheese looks funny. The label said not to store the cheese in the freezer”
Alvin: “Yeah, I did see the label”
Alvin’s utterance may implicate that he ignored the label and put the cheese in the freezer.
7. Mat: “What with your mother?”
Bob: “Let’s go to the garden”
Bob’s utterance may implicate that he does not want to talk about his mother.
8. Carmen: “Did you buy the car?”
Patricia: “It cost twice as much as I thought it would be
Patricia’s utterance may implicate that she did not buy the car because it was too expensive.
9. Robert: “Where is the salad dressing?”
Bela: “We run out of olive oil”
Bela’s utterance may implicate that they can't make salad dressing without olive oil.
10. Maggie: “The bathroom’s flooded”
Jim: “Someone must have left the tap on”
Jim’s utterance may implicate that the flooding in the bathroom was caused by someone, not the
speaker.

A coda is made up of the consonants at the end of a syllable. For example, in the word 'stands'
(IPA: /stændz/), /ndz/ is the coda. Many languages, such as Swahili, do not allow codas. A
syllable without a coda is an open syllable, and one with a coda is a closed syllable.

In phonetics, a coda is the final part of the syllable, placed after the central part of a syllable
(known as the nucleus)