ENG507 Final Term Past Papers Spring 2019

Paper Pattern: There will be 52 questions

MCQs: 40 2 Marks: 4 3 Marks: 4 5 Marks: 4

Time Duration: 120 minutes.

Syllabus: Lesson 21-42(Topics 104-209)

Q. In syllable timed languages, all syllables tend to have an equal time value (for example, their length or duration) and the rhythm of the language is said to be syllable-timed

Q. TESOL stand for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

Q. ELTR is a project of: higher education commission

Q. stress time language have (stress) as their dominating rhythmic features.

Q. In spectrograms, time runs from left to right, the frequency of the components is shown on the vertical scale.

Q. acoustics is the study of the physics of the speech signal

Q. One should observe gap in pattern (with burst for voiceless and sharp formant beginning for voiced stops.)

Q. Which of the following vowel is uttered by rounding lips? /u/

Q. spectogram help to know about bilabiel sound.....2 [The most favourite of VU; V.V.IMP for 2 marks questions. They are asking about stops or bilabial or approximants.]

Voiced - vertical striations corresponding to the vibrations of the vocal folds

Bilabial - locus of both second and third formants comparatively low

Alveolar - locus of second formant about 1700–1800 Hz.

Velar - usually high locus of the second formant

Retroflex - general lowering of the third and fourth formants

Stop - gap in pattern (with burst for voiceless and sharp formant beginning for voiced stops)

Fricative - random noise pattern in higher frequency regions Nasal - formant structure similar to that of vowels (with formants at 250, 2500, and 3250)

Lateral - formant structure similar to that of vowels (with formants at 250, 1200, and 2400)

Approximant - formant structure similar to that in vowels, usually changing

Q. Memory for Speech [Another favourite of VU; V.V.IMP for 2 marks questions. They ask it for speaking style, sound change or any one of them.]

The role of the memory for speech under the exemplar theory suggests that many instances of each word are stored in memory and their phonetic variability is memorized rather than computed. The main postulates of the concepts are given here:

Language universal features: Broad phonetic classes (e.g., aspirated vs. unaspirated) derive from physiological constraints on speaking or hearing, but their detailed phonetic definitions are arbitrary—a matter of community norms. Speaking styles: No one style is basic (from which others are derived), because all are stored in memory. Bilingual speakers store two systems. Generalization and productivity: Exemplar theory says that generalization is also possible within productivity. Interestingly, productivity—the hallmark of linguistic knowledge in the phonetic implementation approach—is the least developed aspect of the exemplar theory. Sound change: Sound change is phonetically gradual and operates across the whole lexicon. It is a gradual shift as new instances keep on adding.

Q. Cardinal vowels contrast with primary and secondary

The primary set includes eight vowels in total (from 1 to 8); the front unrounded vowels [i, e, ε, a], the back unrounded vowel [ɑ] and the rounded back vowels [ɔ, o, u].

A set of secondary cardinal vowels (as a precise set of references) was introduced by the same British phonetician Danial Jones (1881-1967). Secondary cardinal vowels are easy to understand in connection with the primary cardinal vowel system. The main difference between primary and secondary cardinal vowels is related to liprounding as in some languages the feature of lip-rounding is possible for front vowels.

Q. Eplaining the balance between phonetic forces.

While going for producing sounds with maximum ease of articulation, only similar sounds are affected. The focus of the speakers is always on maintaining a sufficient perceptual distance between the sounds that occur in a contrasting set (e.g., vowels in stressed-monosyllabic words beat, bit, bet, and bat). This principle of perceptual separation does not usually result into one sound affecting an adjacent sound (as explained in the principle of maximum ease of articulation). Instead, perceptual separation affects the set of sounds that potentially can occur at a given position in a word, such as in the position that must be occupied by a vowel in a stressed monosyllable as in words beat, bit, bet, bat so that the perceptual separation is maximized. The principle of ‘maximum perceptual separation’ also accounts for some of the differences between languages. All these examples illustrate how languages maintain a balance between the requirements of the speaker and those of the listener. On the one hand, there is the pressure to make changes that would result in easier articulations from a speaker’s point of view and, then, from the listener’s point of view that there should be sufficient perceptual contrast between sounds that affect the meaning of an utterance.

Q. IPA

While discussing the key elements of linguistic phonetic description, we need to consider the International Phonetic Alphabet (abbreviated as IPA). IPA is the set of symbols and diacritics that have been officially approved by IPA. The association publishes a chart comprising of a number of separate charts. At the top inside the front cover, you will find the main consonant chart. Below it is a table showing the symbols for nonpulmonic consonants, and below that is the vowel chart. Inside the back cover is a list of diacritics and other symbols, and a set of symbols for suprasegmental features (events) such as tone, intonation, stress, and length. Remember that the IPA chart does not try to cover all possible types of phonetic descriptions (e.g., all the individual strategies for realizing linguistic phonological contrasts, or gradations in the degree of co-articulation between adjacent segments, etc.). Instead, it is limited to those possible sounds that can have linguistic significance in that they can change the meaning of a word in some languages. So the description of IPA is based on the linguistic phonetics of the community.

Q. fundamantal distinction consonant and vowel sound?

The fundamental distinction between consonant and vowel sounds is that vowels make the least obstruction to the flow of air. In addition to this, vowels are almost always found at the center of a syllable, and it is very rare to find any sound, other than a vowel which can stand alone as a whole syllable. Phonetically, each vowel has a number of features (properties) that distinguish it from other vowels. These include; firstly, the shape of the lips (lip-rounding), rounded (for sounds like /u:/ vowel), neutral (as for ə - schwa sound) or spread (as in /i:/ sound in word like sea or – when photographers traditionally ask you to say “cheese” /tʃi:z/ in order to make you look smiling. Secondly, part of the tongue - the front, the middle or the back of the tongue may be raised, giving different vowel qualities: compare /æ/ vowel (as in word ‘cat’) as a front vowel, with the /ɑ:/ vowel (as in ‘cart’) which is a back vowel. Thirdly, the tongue (and the lower jaw) may be raised ‘close’ to the roof of the mouth (for close vowels. e.g. /i:/ or /u:/), or the tongue may be left ‘low’ in the mouth with the jaw comparatively ‘open’ (as for open vowels e.g., /a:/ and /æ/. In British phonetics, terms such as ‘close’ and ‘open’ are used for vowels, whereas in American phonetics ‘high’ and ‘low’ are used for vowel description. So, generally, these three aspects are described in the case of vowels; liprounding, the part of the tongue and the height of the tongue. In addition to these three features, some other characteristics of vowels are also used in various languages of the world (e.g., nasality – whether a vowel is nasal or not).

Q. Phonotactics

The study of the phonemes and their order found in the syllables (the study of sound sequences) of a language is called the phonotactics. It has often been found that languages do not allow all phonemes to appear in any order (e.g., a native speaker of English can figure out fairly easily that the sequence of phonemes /streŋθs/ makes an English word (‘strengths’) and that the sequence /bleidg/ would be acceptable as an English word ‘blage’, although that word does not happen to exist, but the sequence /lvm/ could not possibly be the part of an English word). Phonotactic analyses of English come up with some interesting findings. For example, why should ‘bump’, ‘lump’, ‘hump’, ‘rump’, ‘mump(s)’, ‘clump’ and others all be associated with large blunt shapes? Why should there be a whole family of words ending with a plosive and a syllabic /l/ all having meanings to do with clumsy, awkward or difficult action (e.g., ‘muddle’, ‘fumble’, ‘straddle’, ‘cuddle’, ‘fiddle’, ‘buckle’, ‘struggle’, ‘wriggle’)? Why can’t English syllables begin with /pw/, /bw/, /tl/, /dl/ when /pl/, /bl/, /tw/, /dw/ are acceptable? All such discussion is called the phonotactics of the language.

Q. pitch in tonal language

In tonal languages, pitch is used as an essential component of the pronunciation of a word and a change of pitch may cause a change in meaning. In most languages (whether or not they are tone languages) pitch plays a central role in intonation. In very simple words, pitch is the variation in the vibration of vocal folds.