浙江外国语学院英文学院 《英语语言学概论》复习题集

2. What are the main features of human language that have been specified by C. Hockett to show that it is essentially different from animal communication system?

Chapter 2：Phonology

I. Decide whether each of the following statements is true or false:

1. Voicing is a phonological feature that distinguishes meaning in both Chinese and

English.

2. If two phonetically similar sounds occur in the same environments and they

distinguish meaning, they are said to be in complementary distribution. 3. A phone is a phonetic unit that distinguishes meaning. 4. English is a tone language while Chinese is not. 5. In linguistic evolution, speech is prior to writing.

6. In everyday communication, speech plays a greater role than writing in terms of

the amount of information conveyed.

7. Articulatory phonetics tries to describe the physical properties of the stream of

sounds which a speaker issues with the help of a machine called spectrograph. 8. The articulatory apparatus of a human being are contained in three important

areas: the throat, the mouth and the chest. 9. The sound〔z〕is a voiced alveolar stop.

9. Voicing is a distinctive feature for English consonants.

10. When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment that occurs in the same place in the string, then the two words are called minimal pairs. Sip and zip are a minimal pair, as are fine and vine, and veal and leaf.

11. Vibration of the vocal cords results in a quality of speech sounds called

voicing.

12. English consonants can be classified in terms of place of articulation and the part

of the tongue that is raised the highest.

13. According to the manner of articulation, some of the types into which the

consonants can be classified are stops, fricatives, bilabial and alveolar.

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浙江外国语学院英文学院 《英语语言学概论》复习题集

12. Vowel sounds can be differentiated by a number of factors: the position of tongue

in the mouth, the openness of the mouth, the shape of the lips, and the length of the vowels.

13. According to the shape of the lips, vowels can be classified into close vowels,

semi-close vowels, semi-open vowels and open vowels.

14. The English consonants can be classified in terms of place and manner of articulation.

15. The qualities of vowels depend on the positions of lips. 16. Any sound produced by a human being is a phoneme. 17. Phones are the sounds that can distinguish meaning.

18. Phonology is concerned with how the sounds can be classified into different

categories.

19. A basic way to determine the phonemes of a language is to see if substituting one

sound for another result in a change of meaning.

20. When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound

segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two words are said to form a phonemic contrast.

21. The rules governing the phonological patterning are language specific. 22. Distinctive features of sound segments can be found running over a sequence of

two or more phonemic segments.

23. Articulatory phonetics is the study of the production of speech sounds.

24. The speech sounds in almost every language can be divided into two major natural classes: consonants and vowels.

25. The distinction between vowels and consonants lies in the obstruction of airstream.

26. Suprasegmental features are distinctive features of segmental phonemes.

II. Fill in each of the following blanks with one word which begins with the letter given:

27． A_____ refers to a strong puff of air stream in the production of speech sounds. 28． A___________ phonetics describes the way our speech organs work to produce

the speech sounds and how they differ.

29． The four sounds /p/,/b/,/m/ and /w/ have one feature in common, i.e, they are all

b_______ sounds.

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浙江外国语学院英文学院 《英语语言学概论》复习题集

30．Of all the speech organs, the t ____ is the most flexible, and is responsible for

varieties of articulation than any other.

31．English consonants can be classified in terms of manner of articulation or in terms

of p_______ of articulation.

32． When the obstruction created by the speech organs is total or complete, the

speech sound produced with the obstruction audibly released and the air passing out again is called a s________.

33． S_________ features are the phonemic features that occur above the level of the

segments. They include stress, tone, intonation, etc.

34． The rules that govern the combination of sounds in a particular language are

called s ____ rules.

35． The transcription of speech sounds with letter-symbols only is called broad

transcription while the transcription with letter-symbols together with the diacritics is called n_________ transcription.

36． When pitch, stress and sound length are tied to the sentence rather than the word

in isolation, they are collectively known as i_________.

37． P___________ is a discipline which studies the system of sounds of a particular

language and how sounds are combined into meaningful units to effect linguistic communication.

38. If you say door, new, two, senior, zoo, you will notice that the first sounds in all these words are a_______ sounds. The t and s are voiceless, and d, n and z are voiced. Only n is nasal.

39． The articulatory apparatus of a human being are contained in three important

cavities: the pharyngeal cavity, the o_______ cavity and the nasal cavity. 40． T_______ are pitch variations, which are caused by the differing rates of

vibration of the vocal cords and which can distinguish meaning just like phonemes.

41． Depending on the context in which stress is considered, there are two kinds of

stress: 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:

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浙江外国语学院英文学院 《英语语言学概论》复习题集

1. The study of the physical properties of speech sounds is called ________ phonetics. A. acoustic B. articulatory C. auditory D. allomorphic 2. The sound /f/ is _________________.

A. voiced palatal affricate B. voiced alveolar stop C. voiceless velar fricative D. voiceless labiodental fricative 3． Of all the speech organs, the _______ is/ are the most flexible.

A. mouth B. lips C. tongue D. vocal cords

4．The sounds produced without the vocal cords vibrating are ____ sounds. A. voiceless B. voiced C. vowel D. consonantal 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 feature of

a sequential phoneme, thus making the two phones ____________. A. identical B. same

C. exactly alike D. similar they can distinguish meaning, they are said to be ___________.

7. Since /p/ and /b/ are phonetically similar, occur in the same environments and A. in phonemic contrast B. in complementary distribution

C. the allophones D. minimal pair

8．The sound /f/ is _________________.

A. voiced palatal affricate B. voiced alveolar stop

C. voiceless velar fricative D. voiceless labiodental fricative 9. A ____ vowel is one that is produced with the front part of the tongue maintaining the highest position.

A. back B. central

C. front D. middle 10. Palatal semi-vowel refers to the sound . A. [n] B. [h] C. [w] D. [j]

11. A phoneme is a group of phonetically similar sounds called . A. minimal pairs B. allomorphs C. phones D. allophones

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