FURTHER EXERCISES

Phonetics and Phonology

1. Write the phonetic symbol for the first sound in each of the following words
according to the way you pronounce it.
1. judge 6. thought
2. Thomas 7. contact
3. through 8. phone
4. easy 9. civic
5. pneumonia 10. usury

2. Write the phonetic symbol for the first sound in each of the following words
according to the way you pronounce it.
1. fierce 6. cow
2. known 7. rough
3. long 8. cheese
4. health 9. bleached
5. watch 10. rags

3. Write the following words in phonetic transcription, according to your

pronunciation.
1. physics 6. marry
2. merry 7. tease
3. weather 8. heath
4. coat 9. Mary
5. yellow 10. ooze

4. Below is the transcription of one of the verses in the poem “The Walrus and the
Carpenter” by Lewis Carroll. There are one or two errors in each line that is an
impossible pronunciation for any English speaker.
"The time has come," the Walrus said, ðə taɪm həz cʌm
"To talk of many things: ðə ˈwolrəs sed
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
tə tɔ:lk əv ˈmenɪ θɪŋz
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot-- əv ʃu:z | ənd sɪps | ənd ˈsi:lɪŋ wæx
And whether pigs have wings." əv ˈkæbəgəz ənd kɪŋz
ənd waɪ ðə si: ɪs bɔɪlɪŋ hɒt
ənd weθə pɪgz hæv wɪŋz

5. Write the symbol that corresponds to each of the following phonetic descriptions;
then give an English word that contains this sound.
Phoneme Example
1. voiced alveolar stop __________ __________
2. low front vowel __________ __________
3. lateral liquid __________ __________
4. voiceless bilabial stop __________ __________
5. velar nasal __________ __________

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6. voiced interdental fricative __________ __________
7. voiceless affricate __________ __________
8. palatal glide __________ __________
9. mid lax front vowel __________ __________
10. high back tense vowel __________ __________

6. In each of the following pairs of words, the bold italicized sounds differ by one or
more phonetic properties (features). State the differences and similarities between
them.
Ex: cot – caught
The vowel /ɒ/ in cot is mid-low/ half-open and lax.
The vowel /ɔ:/ in caught is mid and tense.
Both are back and round.
1. bath – bathe
2. reduce – reduction
3. cool – cold
4. wife – wives
5. cats – dogs
6. impolite – indecent

7. Write the transcription of the italized words in the following stanzas from a poem
by Richard Krogh.
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and
dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, slough and
through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like
bird.
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead --
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat
(They rhyme with suite and straight and
debt)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose -
-
Just look them up -- and goose and
choose.
And cork and work and card and ward.
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go and thwart and cart.
Come, come, I've hardly made a start!
A dreadful language? Man alive,
I'd mastered it when I was five!

8. For each group of sounds listed below, state the phonetic feature or features
which they all share.
Ex: [p] [b] [m] – labial, stop, consonant
1. [ɡ] [p] [t] [d] [k] [b]
2. [u:] [ʊ] [ɒ] [ɔ:]
3. [i:] [ɪ] [e] [æ]

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4. [t] [s] [ʃ] [p] [k] [tʃ] [f] [h]
5. [v] [z] [j] [m] [n] [l] [r] [w]
6. [t] [d] [s] [z] [l] [n]

9. What is the distinctive feature between two sets of sounds below?

A B
[i:] [ɪ] [u:] [ʊ]
[p] [t] [k] [s] [f] [b] [d] [ɡ] [z] [v]
[p] [b] [m] [t] [d] [n] [s] [z]
[i:] [ɪ] [u:] [ʊ] [æ] [ɑ:]
[f] [v] [s] [z] [ʃ] [ʒ] [tʃ] [dʒ]

10. Write the following sentences in regular English spelling.

1. /nəʊm ̍tʃɒmskɪ ɪz ə ˈlɪŋgwɪst huː ˈtiːʧɪz ət em aɪ tiː/
2. /fəˈnetɪks ɪz ðə ˈstʌdi əv spiːʧ saʊndz/
3. /ɔːl ˈlæŋgwɪʤɪz ju:z saʊndz prəˈdjuːst baɪ ði ˈʌpə rɪsˈpɪrətəri ˈsɪstəm/

11. In some dialects of English the following words have different vowels, as is
shown by the phonetic transcriptions.
A B C
bite /bʌɪt/ bide /baɪd/ die /daɪ/
rice /rʌɪs/ rise /raɪz/ by /baɪ/
ripe /rʌɪp/ bribe /braɪb/ sigh /saɪ/
wife /wʌɪf/ wives /waɪvz/ rye /raɪ/
dike /dʌɪk/ dime /daɪm/ guy /ɡaɪ/
nine /naɪn/
rile /raɪl/
1. Observe the final consonants in columns A and B. What feature specifies all the final
segments in these two columns?
2. How do the words in column C differ from those in columns A and B?
3. Are [ʌɪ] and [aɪ] allophones of one phoneme or two phonemes? If they are two
allophones of one phoneme, should they be derived from [ʌɪ] or [aɪ]? Why?
4. Based on what is observed above, give the phonetic representations of the following
words.
life lives lie
file bike lice
5. State the rule that will relate the phonemic representations to the phonetic
representations of the words given above.

12. Find another word to finish the minimal pairs

1. hair - _________ 6. bin - ________
2. lock - _________ 7. fame - _________
3. thing - _________ 8. rob - ________
4. tree - _________ 9. paint - ________
5. bride - _________ 10. well - _________

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13. Below are listed ten “words.” Some are English words, some are not words now
but could be (they are “possible words”), and others are definitely “foreign” (they
violate English sequential constraints).
Word Possible Foreign Reason
/θrəʊt/
/slɪɡ/
/lsɪɡ/
/prɪl/
/skri:tʃ/
/knəʊ/
/meɪ/
/gnɒstɪk/
/ju:nɪkɔ:n/
/fruit/
/blæft/
/ŋɑ:r/

14. Consider the following data from Finnish:

a. [ku:zi] ‘six’ g. [li:sa] ‘Lisa’
b. [kudot] ‘failures’ h. [madon] ‘of a worm’
c. [kate] ‘cover’ i. [maton] ‘of a rug’
d. [fatot] ‘roofs’ j. [ratas] ‘wheel’
e. [kade] ‘envious’ k. [li:za] ‘Lisa’
f. [ku:si] ‘six’ l. [radan] ‘of a truck’

1. Do [s] and [z] represent different phonemes?

2. Do [t] and [d] represent different phonemes?
3. State the distribution of each phone.

15. Apply the phonological rules to transcribe the following words, phrases and
sentences.
1. Life is about making an impact, not making an income. –Kevin Kruse
2. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.
–Alice Walker
3. The mind is everything. What you think you become. –Buddha
4. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. –Steve Jobs
5. Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. –Vince Lombardi
6. Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. –
Pablo Picasso
7. You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. –
Christopher Columbus
8. I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. –Stephen
Covey