Chapter 5: Phonemes and Context

A phoneme is:

• A sound with no meaning

• The smallest unit that changes meaning

• A sound variant

• A spelling rule

Which of the following is an allophone of /p/?

• /b/

• [pʰ]

• [f]

• /t/

Which pair is a minimal pair?

• /bit/ – /beat/

• /pit/ – /bit/

• /sin/ – /sing/

• All of the above

Allophones are:

• Always contrastive

• Predictable variants of a phoneme

• Unrelated to phonemes

• Meaning-changing sounds

What distinguishes a phoneme from an allophone?

• Spelling

• Pitch

• Meaning contrast

• Syllable count

Allophones in complementary distribution:

• Occur in the same environments

• Occur randomly

• Occur in separate, non-overlapping contexts

• Always change meaning

Free variation means:

• One phoneme always replaces another

• A sound can be pronounced in more than one way without changing meaning

• A new word is created

• Phonemes are deleted

Which transcription gives more phonetic detail?

• /.../

• [...]

• CAPITAL letters

• None of the above

/t/ in “top” is:

• Voiced

• Glottalized

• Aspirated

• Deleted

In American English, “water” is pronounced with:

• Glottal stop

• Flapped /t/ [ɾ]

• Aspirated /t/

• Voiceless fricative