PHONETICS & PHONOLOGY REVISION

I.GAP FILLING
Part 1:
• One ……………………. is moved against another, or two ……………………. are moved against
each other, so as to form a ……………………. that allows no air to escape from the vocal
tract. The stricture is, then, ……………………..
• After this stricture has been formed and air has been ……………………. behind it, it is
released - that is, air is allowed to escape.
• If the air behind the stricture is still under pressure when the plosive is released, it is
probable that the escape of air will produce noise loud enough to be heard. This noise
is called ……………………..
• There may be voicing during part or all of the plosive articulation.
• There are…………………….phases in a plosive articulation.
Part 2
List the name of the phase:
• The air is compressed and stopped from escaping: ................................................................
• All that happen after PHASE 3: ................................................................................................
• The articulator or articulators move to form the stricture for the plosive:............................
• The articulators used to form the stricture are moved so as to allow air to: .........................

Part 3:
• The release of p, t, k is followed by audible plosion - that is, a burst of noise. There is then,
in the post-release phase, a period during which air escapes through the vocal folds,
making a sound like h. This is called…………………….…
 • In general we can say that a…………………….…plosive may have the characteristics either of
final or of initial plosives.
• The difference between p, t, k and b, d, g is primarily the fact that the vowels preceding
p, t, k are much……………………. The shortening effect of p, t, k is most noticeable when the
vowels is one of the long vowels or diphthongs. This effect is sometimes known
as…………………………….….
• Fricatives are consonants with the characteristics that air escapes through
a…………..……passage and makes a……………………sound.
• Fricatives are……………………consonants, which means that you can continue making them
without……………………as long as you have enough air in your lungs.
• Affricates begin as……………………and end as ……………………. In the production of an
affricate, the plosive is followed immediately by………………… ……………………….

Part 4:
• The basic characteristics of a nasal consonants is that the air escapes through………………… .
For this to happen, the……………. must be …………….. In the nasal consonants, air does not
pass through ……………….; it is prevented by a ……………………….. in the mouth at some point.
• When the nasal is preceded by a vowel in one syllable, the vowel is ………………………, i.e.
part of the air used to produce the vowel are passed through the nasal cavity.
• The /l/ phoneme is a………………… ……………………….This is a consonant in which the passage
of air through the mouth does not go in the usual way along the center of the tongue;
instead there is a complete closure between the…………of the tongue and the part of
the…………of the mouth.
• In the case of the lateral /l/, the complete closure is between the center of the tongue
and the …………………………….. . Because of this complete closure along the center, the only
way for the air to escape is ……………………………………. .
 • For example, the realization of /l/ in the word ‘lea’ /liː/ is quite different from that in ‘eel’
/iːl/. The sound in ‘eel’ is what we call …………………. . The sound in ‘lea’ is what we
call …………….. . Another allophone of /l/ is found when it …………………………….. at the
beginning of a stressed syllable. The /l/ is then …………………and pronounced as
a……………………….
• An approximant, as a type of consonant, is rather difficult to describe; informally we can
say that it is an articulation in which the articulators approach each other but do not
get ……………………………. ………………………… to each other to produce
a…………………consonant such as……………………………. ………………………… ……………………………
• The important thing about the articulation of /r/ is that the tip of the tongue
approach……………………………. in approximately the way it would for a /t/ or /d/,
but…………………. .
• The tongue is in fact usually slightly …………………………………..; consonants with this tongue
shape are usually called retroflex.
• A rather different /r/ sound is found at the beginning of a syllable if it is preceded by /p/,
/t/, /k/; it is then ……………………… and fricative.
• The most important thing to remember about these phonemes is that they are
phonetically like ……………………. That is why in earlier works on phonology they were
known as …………………….
• When /p/ /t/ /k/ are followed by one of the /l/, /r/, /j/, /w/ these voiced continuant
consonants are ………………………. and become fricative
• A …………………….consonant or ……………………. consonant is a consonant that forms a
syllable on its own, like the /m/, /n/ and /l/ in the English words rhythm, button and
bottle.
Part 5:
• These …………………………vowels are a standard reference system. If you learn these
vowels, you are not learning to make English sounds, but you are learning about the
 range of vowels that the human vocal ………………….. can make, and also learning a useful
way of describing, classifying and comparing vowels.
• In English, there are 5 long vowels. These are the vowels which tend to be longer than
the short vowels ……………………………….
• The 5 long vowels are different from the 6 short vowels not only in…………………but also
in…………………
• ……………………… are sounds which consists of a movement or glide from one vowel to
another.
• A vowel which remains constant and does not glide is called …………….……….…………………
• The most important thing to remember about all the diphthongs is that the first part is
much …………………and……………………than the second part.
• Centering diphthongs include: ……………………………………………………………………………
• Closing diphthongs include: ……………………………………………………………………………
• A……………………… is a glide from one vowel to another and then to a third, all produced
rapidly and without interruption.
• A phoneme is the …………………… …………………… unit in the sound system of a language.
• A …………………… is one of the units of sound that distinguish one word from another in a
particular language.
• The difference in meaning between the words kill /kɪl/ and kiss /kɪs/ is a result of the
substitution of one phoneme, /l/, for another phoneme, /s/. Two words like this that differ
in meaning through a contrast of a single phoneme form what is called a ……………………
• …………………… are abstract. The actual/concrete realization of a …………………… is a phone.
For example: the phoneme /p/ could be realized as unaspirated [p] in ‘spit’ or aspirated
[pʰ] in ‘pit’. The [p] and [pʰ] are two different realizations of the same phoneme /p/ and
are usually referred to as two ……………………of the phoneme /p/
• Allophone, one of the phonetically ……………… variants of a phoneme.
 • The occurrence of one allophone rather than another is usually determined by
its ……………… in the word (initial, final, medial, etc.) or by its phonetic environment.
• An allophone is one of the……………………………variants of a minimal distinctive linguistic
sound
• ………………………………is the mutually exclusive relationship between two phonetically
similar segments. It exists when one segment occurs in an environment where the other
segment never occurs.
• Complementary Distribution indicates that two basic sounds are
not………………………PHONEMES, but conditioned variants of the same phoneme, of the
same minimally distinctive sound. ………………………variants of a phoneme are called
ALLOPHONES.
• ………………………….: Two (or more) words that differ only by a single sound in the same
position and that have different meanings.
Part 6:

PHONEME ALLOPHONE
• real/actual/concrete realization of
• abstract unit
the phoneme
• contrastive • non-contrastive

• non-predictable • predictable

Part 7:
• Phonetically, ……………………are usually described as consisting of a centre which has little
or no obstruction to airflow and which sounds comparatively loud; before and after this
centre, there will be greater obstruction to airflow and/or less loud sound.
 • A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word
‘water’ is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a
syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically,
consonants).

• A syllable is a unit of sound composed of:

➢ an obligatory central peak of sonority (usually a vowel), and
➢ (optionally) the consonants that cluster around this central peak.

II. VOWELS & CONSONANTS

2.1 Name the properties of the consonants underlined

whistle: _____________________________________________
clothes: _____________________________________________
judge: _______________________________________________
sword: ______________________________________________
rough: ______________________________________________
measure: ____________________________________________
Thailand: ____________________________________________
shack: _______________________________________________
sponge: _____________________________________________
receipt: _____________________________________________
meadow: ____________________________________________
spaghetti:____________________________________________
garage: ______________________________________________
clothed: _____________________________________________
xylophone: ___________________________________________
 agent:_______________________________________________
chord: ______________________________________________
cease: _______________________________________________
mother: _____________________________________________
sign: ________________________________________________
manage: _____________________________________________
thyme: ______________________________________________
signature:____________________________________________
scissor: ______________________________________________
cloth: _______________________________________________
as: _________________________________________________
advice: ______________________________________________
yes: ________________________________________________
why: ________________________________________________
wrist: _______________________________________________
this: ________________________________________________
den: ________________________________________________
unusual: _____________________________________________
acid: ________________________________________________
2.2 Name the consonants

-voiced -post-alveolar -liquid

-voiceless -bilabial -plosive

-voiced -bilabial -approximant

-voiced -labiodental -fricative

-voiced -alveolar -liquid

-voiceless -alveolar -plosive

-voiced -bilabial -nasal

-voiceless -alveolar -fricative

-voiceless -post-alveolar -affricate

-voiceless -labiodental -fricative

-voiced -post-alveolar -affricate

-voiceless -velar -plosive

-voiced -velar -plosive

-voiceless -dental -fricative

-voiced -dental -fricative

-voiced -alveolar -nasal

-voiced -bilabial -plosive

-voiced -palatal -approximant

-voiced -post-alveolar -fricative

-voiced -velar -nasal

-voiceless -post-alveolar -fricative

-voiced -alveolar -fricative

-voiced -glottal -fricative

-voiced -alveolar -plosive

-voiced -velar -nasal

-voiceless -labiodental -fricative

-voiced -alveolar -nasal

-voiced -alveolar -fricative

-voiceless -post-alveolar -affricate

 -voiceless -alveolar -fricative

-voiceless -dental -fricative

-voiced -bilabial -approximant

-voiceless -alveolar -plosive

2.3 Choose from A-D the vowels or consonants which are illustrated by the figure

1.

A. butter
B. sugar
C. lumber
D. turquoise

2.

A. brick
B. prefix
C. crisp
D. bin

3.
 A. cupboard
B. colleague
C. career
D. cowboy

4.

A. harshness
B. happiness
C. otherness
D. harass

5.

A. astronaut
B. bureaucracy
C. policy
D. adoption

6.
 A. bury
B. banking
C. banditry
D. aperture

7.

A. theory
B. personnel
C. colonel
D. athlete

8.

A. lingerie
B. deteriorate
C. itinerary
D. decrepit

9.
 A. panic
B. infamous
C. gauge
D. shaming

10.

A. rendezvous
B. coup
C. pseudonym
D. juror

11.

A. scenic
B. species
C. routine
D. destination

12.
 A. flour
B. influenza
C. influx
D. foolish

13.

A. pronunciation
B. assimilation
C. elision
D. elite

14.

A. chalet
B. viscount
C. timbre
D. hinge

15.
 A. bullish
B. foreclosure
C. acoustic
D. forecourt

16.

A. hotshot
B. association
C. salmon
D. shooting

17.

A. masseur
B. attorney
C. pearl
D. heifer

18.
 A. chauvinism
B. anemone
C. cocoa
D. foliage

19.

A. elite
B. valet
C. radio
D. gala

20.

A. careful
B. caterer
C. panacea
D. mayonnaise
21.
III. PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION

Phonemic Transcription Phonetic Transcription

listen

ambulance
 cress
blithe
button
bought
cream
inner
computer
trick
sadden
picture
cue
tunnel
link
this
judge
crooked
catch
rhythm
monkey
tutor
problem
title
precious
heel
tweeter
singer
preach
didn’t
meeting
cough
yacht
square
practice
zinc
massage
guard
 quick
impossible
gentleman
poster
angle
kettle
daunt
hang
cheque
nostril
belt
please
stitch
press
don’t
lovely
wreathe
genre
 doubt
link
veal
click
church
thing
niece
curious

IV. MINIMAL PAIRS

1. pair → 2. fit → 3. eat →

4. best → 5. alive → 6. boat →

7. which → 8. long → 9. wrist →

10. fly → 11. rice → 12. ice →

13. niece 14. lock → 15. pull →

16. bought → 17. cut → 18. left →

19. cheque 20. call → 21. not →

22. sit → 23. tidy → 24. veil →

25. late → 26. doze → 27. get →

28. fond → 29. spout → 30. uncle →

 31. breathe → 32. close → 33. gas →

34. bus → 35. launch → 36. back →

37. mad → 38. lack → 39. paste →

40. man → 41. mean → 42. west →

43. knot → 44. sock → 45. far →

46. did → 47. nut → 48. done →

49. load → 50. town → 51. now →

52. day → 53. light → 54. pain →

55. tie → 56. boy → 57. vice →

58. brown → 59. blind → 60. fool →

61. stewed → 62. stage → 63. pays →

64. fist → 65. tin → 66. low →

67. mole → 68. pace → 69. fashion →

V. SYLLABLE STRUCTURE

SYLLABLE

ONSET RYTHME
coda
pre- post-
initial peak pre- post- post- post-
initial initial final
final final 1 final 2 final 3
1 scarp
2 plumed
3 aches
4 frond
5 squeaked
6 sixths
7 thrones
8 squealed
9 banks
10 prompts
11 strengths
12 quick
13 belt
14 next
15 knives
16 slow
17 split
18 texts
19 threats
20 scramped
21 helped
22 jeans
23 twelfths
24 screens
25 spread

SYLLABLE

ONSET RYTHME
coda
pre- post-
initial peak pre- post- post- post-
initial initial final
final final 1 final 2 final 3
1 sleeps
2 blanks
3 ants
4 friends
5 months
6 huge
7 quizzes
8 drain
9 lapsed