Phonetics and Phonology Questions and Answers

Answer: C

A diphthong always occupies one syllable. A diphthong is a glide from one vowel quality to another within a single syllable, as in the vowels of 'my' or 'boy'. Two vowel sounds that belong to separate syllables, as in 'create', are not a diphthong. Three, two or zero syllables is therefore wrong: a diphthong is a vowel and every syllable has at least one vowel, so zero is impossible.

Answer: A

Replacing one phoneme with another changes the pronunciation, and often the word as well. Phonemes are the smallest sound units that distinguish meaning, so changing /p/ to /b/ turns 'pat' into 'bat'. The change is in sound, so the first option is correct. Syntax and morphology deal with sentence structure and word forms, which are not changed directly by the substitution of a sound, and the last option wrongly says there will be no change.

Answer: A

Dangerous has eight phonemes: /d/ /eɪ/ /n/ /dʒ/ /ə/ /r/ /ə/ /s/. The word 'cloud' has four (/k/ /l/ /aʊ/ /d/), 'study' has five (/s/ /t/ /ʌ/ /d/ /i/) and 'solved' has five (/s/ /ɒ/ /l/ /v/ /d/). So only 'dangerous' has eight. Counting the sounds in order makes the work easy: 'dangerous' has the sounds d, ay, n, j, uh, r, uh, s, which is eight, while 'study' has s, t, uh, d, ee, which is five, and 'cloud' has k, l, ow, d, which is four, and 'solved' has s, o, l, v, d, which is five.

Answer: A

English consonants are either voiced or voiceless. Voicing means the vocal folds vibrate, as in /b/, /d/, /g/, while the voiceless ones, /p/, /t/, /k/, do not. A consonant cannot be both at the same moment, so the last option is wrong, and not all of them are only voiced or only voiceless. Examples of voiced consonants are b, d, g, v, z and m, and voiceless ones are p, t, k, f and s, so every consonant belongs to one of the two groups. A consonant cannot be voiced and voiceless at the same time, and vowels, not consonants, are generally voiced.

Answer: A

A consonant cluster is a group of two or more consonants occurring together without a vowel in between, as in the beginning of 'street' (/str/) or the end of 'texts'. A combination of vowels and consonants, of diphthongs and semi-vowels, or a word with one vowel and one consonant is not a cluster, so the other options are wrong. The cluster is a sequence of consonants with no vowel between them, as in 'splash', which begins with a cluster of three consonants, or 'asks', which ends with one. A cluster does not contain a vowel or a diphthong, so those options are wrong.

Answer: A

'Minimal' means that the sounds cannot be further subdivided into smaller chunks. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can make a difference in meaning, and it cannot be broken into smaller segments that still distinguish words. The other options describe different things, such as that a sound can be subdivided or that sounds are distinct from each other, which is about contrast, not about minimal size.

Answer: D

The labio-dental sound is /f/, which is made by the lower lip and the upper teeth, and it occurs in 'fine'. The word 'spare' has /s p/, 'man' has /m/ which is bilabial and 'bed' has /b/ which is also bilabial, so they do not have a labio-dental sound. In the labio-dental sound /f/ the lower lip touches the upper teeth. The word 'bed' starts with the bilabial /b/, 'man' with the bilabial nasal /m/, and 'spare' with the alveolar /s/, which makes 'fine' the only word in the list with a labio-dental consonant.

Answer: C

The respiratory system as the speech system in phonetics consists of the lungs, the windpipe and the muscles of the chest, which are the source of the airstream. The lungs alone or the lungs and the windpipe do not include the muscles that push the air, so the third option is the fullest answer and the key. In the sound-producing system the lungs supply the air, the windpipe (trachea) carries it up to the larynx where the vocal folds lie, and the chest muscles power the breathing, so all three belong to the respiratory system as it is set out for phonetics.

Answer: A

The correct transcription is /'ti:tʃə(r)/. The word 'teacher' begins with the long vowel /i:/, written as the two-dot symbol, after the /t/, then the affricate /tʃ/ for 'ch', and a weak vowel schwa and optional /r/ at the end. The second option [titʃ] shows a short vowel and drops the final syllable, and the third and fourth options are not a transcription of this word.

Answer: D

The keyed answer is phonology, the study of the sound system of a particular language and how its sounds work within that language.

Orthoepy is the study of correct or accepted pronunciation, which is also a reasonable reading of the question, so the key is open to question. Phonetics studies speech sounds in general across languages, and accent is a way of speaking, not a study.