新编语言学第三章3 phonology

Chapter Two Phonology

Questions and exercises

1. Broadly speaking, how does phonology differ from phonetics?

2. How does an allophone differ from a phoneme?

3. Which of the following words would be treated as minimal pairs?

tap, pen, move, heat, tape, bun, fat, ban, chain, know, toe, tale, bell, far, meal, vote, heel, phase, face

4. In some dialects of English the following words have different vowels, as is shown by the phonetic transcriptions.

A B C

bite /bʌjt/ bide /bajd/ die /daj/

rice /rʌjs/ rise /rajz/ by /baj/

ripe /rʌjp/ bribe /brajb/

wife /wʌjf/ wives /wajvz/

dike /dʌjk/ dime /dajm/

a. Are /ʌj/ and /aj/ in complementary distribution? Give your reasons.

b. If /ʌj/ and /aj/ are allophones of one phoneme, should they be derived from /ʌj/ or /aj/? Why?

c. Give the phonetic representations of the following: file, bike, lice.

5. Phonetically, there are three /l/ sounds in some varieties of English: a clear [l], with relatively front resonance, dark [l] with relatively lack resonance, and voiceless [l]. These are in complementary distribution. Write a rule showing precisely in which contexts the phoneme /l/ is realized as clear, dark and voiceless.

6. Consider the following data from Finnish:

/ku:zi/ six

/kudot/ failures

/kate/ cover

/katot/ roof

/kade/ envious

/ku:si/ six

/li:sa/ Lisa

/madom/ of a worm

/maton/ of a rug

/ratas/ wheel

/li:za/ Lisa

/radan/ of a track

a. Do /s/ and /z/, /d/ and /t/ represent different phonemes?

b. Are they in complementary distribution?

c. Are they in free variation?

7. Consider the distribution of /r/ and /l/ in Korean in the following words: /rup1/ ruby; /mul/

water; /klrl/ road; /soul/ Seoul; /saram/ person; /,lkop/ seven; /ratio/ radio; /lpalsa/ barber

Are /r/ and /l/ allophones of one or two phonemes? State your reasons.

8. Give three English words which begin with a cluster of three consonants. Write out a rule for

this consonant cluster. Is there any exception to your rule?

9. How many syllables are there in the word "lov eliest"? Identify each syllable’s nucleus and

(where appropriate) onset, rhyme and coda.

10. Write out the phoneme that best records the sound the underlined letter(s) is actually

pronounced in rapid and spontaneous speech:

a. as you may know

b. a meat ball

c. his telephone call

d. Could you go?

e. Take this.

f. Green Park

g. Don’t you like me?

h. ten hooks

i. Does he?

11. What intonation and stress do we use when we say “All that glitters is not gold”?

Key for reference

Questions and exercises:

1. Phonetics is the linguistic study to identify and describe the characteristics of all the speech sounds that occur in all human languages. Phonology is the description of the sound systems and patterns of individual language. Phonology is the application of phonetics to the process of communication in a particular language or languages.

2. Phonemes are the distinctive sounds of a language. They are abstract and ideal. They form a system. Allophones are the members of the same phoneme. They are the actual realization of the phoneme. Most of them are predictable (positional) phonetic variants of a phoneme.

3. tap/tape, bun/ban, know/toe, meal/heel, phase/face

4. a. /ʌj/and /aj/ are in complementary distribution. /ʌj/ only occurs when it is followed by a

voiceless consonant, and /aj/ only occurs when it is followed by a voiced consonant.

b. /ʌj/ and /aj/ are allophones of one phoneme, and /ʌj/ is derived from /aj/ for /aj/ occurs when

it is not followed by any consonant.

c. file /fajl/, bike /hʌjk/, lice /lʌjs/.

5. The phoneme /l/ is realized as clear [1] when it occurs in the initial position of a syllable. It is realised as dark [l] when it occurs in the end position and as voiceless [l] when it follows a