Phonological Analysis and Sound Classification – LING101 Assignment 3

Assignment 3

LING101

Spring 2024

Name:                                                                

1. Identify the natural classes of the following English sounds. Make sure that the natural class you answered excludes all the other English sounds. (15pts)

a. [p t k]                                                     

b. [v ð z ʒ]                                                   

c. [s z ʃ ʒ tʃ dʒ]                                              

d. [u ʊ o ɔ ɑ]                                                 

e. [æ ɑ]                                                     

2. Provide a minimal pair which shows that the following pairs of sounds are contrastive in English. Provide the pairs with their transcriptions. (20pts)

a. [t] and [d]                                                 

b. [s] and [z]                                                  

c. [m] and [n]                                                 

d. [i] and [u]                                                 

e. [æ] and [ɑ]                                                

3. Match the following terms with their definitions. (10pt)

Phonotactics

Phonetics

Phonology

Phoneme

Allophone

                          Mental representation of a sound

                          Actual, physical realization of a sound

                          Study of sounds as individual physical entities

                          Study of how sounds combine to form possible and impossible combinations in a given language.

                          Study of how sounds are organized within a language and how they interact with each other

4. Sindhi Bilabial Plosives (20pts in total)

Sindhi is an Indo-European language of the Indo-Aryan family, spoken in Pakistan and India. Examine the data from Sindhi below and answer the following questions. 

Question 1: Are there any minimal pairs? If yes, list all of them. If not, write N/A. (5pts)

Question 2: Identify the distribution types of [p], [p^h], and [b]. If the distribution is contrastive, provide a relevant minimal pair. If the distributions are complementary, provide the list of environments and state the generalization. (10pts)

Question 3: Are [p], [p^h], and [b] allophones of the same phoneme or separate phoneme? 

(5pts)

5. Mokilese Voiceless Vowels (35pts in total)

Mokilese is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family, spoken in Micronesia. Examine the data from Mokilese below and answer the following questions. Note that a little circle under a vowel symbol indicates that the vowel is voiceless. (i.e., It has the gesture of the vowel in the mouth, but the vocal chords do not vibrate.) 

Question 1: Identify the distribution type of [i] and [i̥]. If the distribution is contrastive, provide a relevant minimal pair. If the distributions are complementary, provide the list of environments, state the generalizations, and write the phonological rules. (10pts)

Question 2: Are [i] and [i̥] allophones of the same phoneme or separate phonemes? 

(5pts)

Question 3: Identify the distribution type of [u] and [u̥]. If the distribution is contrastive, provide a relevant minimal pair. If the distributions are complementary, provide the list of environments, state the generalizations, and write the phonological rules. (10pts)

Question 4: Are [u] and [u̥] allophones of the same phoneme or separate phonemes?

(5pts)

Question 5: Provide the most generalized phonological rules that explain both [i, i̥] pair and [u, u̥] pair. (Hint: which natural class does the alternations target?) (5pts)