Phonetics Review for SPAU 3343 Midterm
UPDATED ACTUAL Exam Questions and
CORRECT Answers
IPA - CORRECT ANSWER - International Phonetic Alphabet. Each symbol represents a
single sound. We can transcribe any sound of any language with IPA.
Linguistics - CORRECT ANSWER - The scientific study of language.
Phonetics - CORRECT ANSWER - Part of linguistics. The scientific study of speech
sound.
Articulatory phonetics - CORRECT ANSWER - How speech sounds are articulated.
Description and classification of speech sounds.
Acoustic phonetics - CORRECT ANSWER - How speech sounds are generated and how
they are transmitted. The relationship between articulation and acoustic output.
Auditory phonetics - CORRECT ANSWER - How human ears perceive speech sounds.
Phonology - CORRECT ANSWER - How speech sounds are used in languages. Study of
systems of speech sounds and the rules which govern them.
Speech sounds - CORRECT ANSWER - Sounds are not the same things as orthography.
The IPA was created to represent actual speech sounds. IPA was designed to consider grouping of
sounds.
Phone - CORRECT ANSWER - An individual sound of speech; an elementary sound unit.
, Phoneme - CORRECT ANSWER - The smallest sound unit in a language that
distinguishes word meanings.
Minimal pair - CORRECT ANSWER - Two words that have exactly the same phonemes
except one. Minimal pairs are useful for determining which sounds are phonemes in a language.
Allophone - CORRECT ANSWER - A variant of a phoneme. The allophones of a
phoneme form a set of sounds that do not change the meaning of a word, are all very similar to
one another, and occur in phonetic contexts different from one another.
Binary features - CORRECT ANSWER - In a binary system, a state is either 'on' or 'off.'
For example, 'voiced' or 'voiceless'.
Graded features - CORRECT ANSWER - Like prosody (the melody of language), it
cannot be explained by clear-cut binary features.
Consonants - CORRECT ANSWER - Consonants sounds may be specified by: V (Voiced
or voiceless), P (Place of articulation), M (Manner of articulation).
Nasal sounds in GAE - CORRECT ANSWER - Three nasal sounds: /m/, /n/, /ŋ/.
Homorganic - CORRECT ANSWER - Two sounds that have the same place of
articulation.
Vowel classification - CORRECT ANSWER - Main classification: Tongue height (high,
mid, or low), Tongue advancement (front, central, or back), Tenseness (tense or lax), Lip
rounding.
Tense vowels - CORRECT ANSWER - Occur in words with a final so-called silent 'e' in
the spelling (e.g., 'mate', 'mete', 'kite', and 'cute').
UPDATED ACTUAL Exam Questions and
CORRECT Answers
IPA - CORRECT ANSWER - International Phonetic Alphabet. Each symbol represents a
single sound. We can transcribe any sound of any language with IPA.
Linguistics - CORRECT ANSWER - The scientific study of language.
Phonetics - CORRECT ANSWER - Part of linguistics. The scientific study of speech
sound.
Articulatory phonetics - CORRECT ANSWER - How speech sounds are articulated.
Description and classification of speech sounds.
Acoustic phonetics - CORRECT ANSWER - How speech sounds are generated and how
they are transmitted. The relationship between articulation and acoustic output.
Auditory phonetics - CORRECT ANSWER - How human ears perceive speech sounds.
Phonology - CORRECT ANSWER - How speech sounds are used in languages. Study of
systems of speech sounds and the rules which govern them.
Speech sounds - CORRECT ANSWER - Sounds are not the same things as orthography.
The IPA was created to represent actual speech sounds. IPA was designed to consider grouping of
sounds.
Phone - CORRECT ANSWER - An individual sound of speech; an elementary sound unit.
, Phoneme - CORRECT ANSWER - The smallest sound unit in a language that
distinguishes word meanings.
Minimal pair - CORRECT ANSWER - Two words that have exactly the same phonemes
except one. Minimal pairs are useful for determining which sounds are phonemes in a language.
Allophone - CORRECT ANSWER - A variant of a phoneme. The allophones of a
phoneme form a set of sounds that do not change the meaning of a word, are all very similar to
one another, and occur in phonetic contexts different from one another.
Binary features - CORRECT ANSWER - In a binary system, a state is either 'on' or 'off.'
For example, 'voiced' or 'voiceless'.
Graded features - CORRECT ANSWER - Like prosody (the melody of language), it
cannot be explained by clear-cut binary features.
Consonants - CORRECT ANSWER - Consonants sounds may be specified by: V (Voiced
or voiceless), P (Place of articulation), M (Manner of articulation).
Nasal sounds in GAE - CORRECT ANSWER - Three nasal sounds: /m/, /n/, /ŋ/.
Homorganic - CORRECT ANSWER - Two sounds that have the same place of
articulation.
Vowel classification - CORRECT ANSWER - Main classification: Tongue height (high,
mid, or low), Tongue advancement (front, central, or back), Tenseness (tense or lax), Lip
rounding.
Tense vowels - CORRECT ANSWER - Occur in words with a final so-called silent 'e' in
the spelling (e.g., 'mate', 'mete', 'kite', and 'cute').
