Study Questions on Words, Word Structure, Sounds

The questions on the first exam will be similar to the practice exercises posted on Blackboard and at the end of the chapters in the textbook. You should be familiar enough with the material that was discussed in class to be able to work each problem without doing extensive searching in the text. I recommend looking over the following problems:

There will also be one or two additional questions about the homework exercises that you turned in. For example, what is the difference between an inflectional and derivational morpheme or an affix and a word?

The exam will be an open book, open note exam. I will not test your ability to repeat definitions of basic terms, but will test your ability to use linguistic terms to analyze language.

Sample Problems

What problems do researchers face in estimating the size of a speaker’s mental lexicon?

What are the different processes for forming new words?

What is the morphological structure for the words unemployment and unbelievable?

Write the three-part articulatory descriptions for the consonant sounds [p], [z], [l].

Write the IPA symbol for a voiceless, interdental fricative.

Write the four-part articulatory descriptions for the vowel sounds [I], [u], [a].

Write the IPA symbol for a mid, front, lax, unrounded vowel.

Provide a phonetic transcription for the words breathe, breath and pure.

Define contrastive distribution, complementary (noncontrastive) distribution and free variation.

Are [l] and [r] contrastive sounds in English? If yes, provide a minimal pair.

Are voiced and voiceless [l] allophones of /l/ in English? If yes, provide words with these allophones.

Do you use minimal pairs to test for allophones of different phonemes or allophones of the same phoneme?

Are allophones in free variation predictable? What is an example of free variation in English?

Write a rule for liquid devoicing in English.

Write a rule for vowel nasalization in English.