Exercises.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 568.

Tricky questions.

· Can you prove that the phoneme is a unity of three aspects: material, abstract and functional? Why can none of them be ignored?

· Explain the correlation between the phoneme and its actual speech sounds. Illustrate by examples.

· Point out why it is important to distinguish between the principle and subsidiary allophones of the phoneme.

· Explain the difference between distinctive and non-distinctive features of the phoneme. Give notable instances of these either from English or Russian. How is the invariant of the phoneme formed? What happens if there is a change in the invariant?

· What are the aims and ways of the phonological analysis of speech sounds? Explain the essence of a purely distributional method and the method of the commutation test. Give examples. What are the benefits and drawbacks of the methods?

· What practical conclusions can be made from the knowledge of principles and methods of phonological analysis?

1. ² a. Read the words below, paying attention to the allophonic variations of one and the same phoneme.

/t/ aspirated: take, tall, tell, tonne

unaspirated: steak, stone, student, study

no audible release: outpost, outcome, football, pitbull

nasal release: cotton, kitten, mitten, eaten

lateral release: little, brittle, cattle, at last

/d/ voiced: order, murder, leader, muddy

partly devoiced 1: do, did, done, die, day

partly devoiced 2: dry, dribble, dwindle, dwarf

partly devoiced 3: mad, bad, red, road

no audible release: good dog, good day, bed time, bad time

nasal release: admit, administer, admonish, road map

lateral release:middle, meddle, needle, good luck