Test on “Phonetics”

Тема 1.

1. Where the fundamental areas of interest in phonetics were established?

   1. In India

   2. In Greece

   3. In China

2. Which branch of phonetics studies phonetic systems of any languages irrespectively of their relations or similarity?

   1. general phonetics

   2. comparative phonetics

   3. special phonetics

3. The sound system of the particular language may be studied diachronically by __.

   1. historical phonetics

   2. descriptive phonetics

4. Phonetics is divided into __ phonetics, which is concerned with individual sounds, and __ phonetics, which studies larger units of connected speech: syllables, words, phrases and texts.

   1. segmental

   2. acoustic

   3. theoretical

   4. articulatory

   5. suprasegmental

Тема 2.

1. State stages in which a speech sound is produced in the proper order.

   1. physiological

   2. acoustic

   3. the reception of the waves by the listener’s hearing apparatus, the transmission of the message to the brain and the linguistic interpretation of the information conveyed

   4. psychological

2. According to the above-mentioned stages, speech sounds have four aspects. Put them in the proper order.

   1. functional

   2. articulatory

   3. auditory

   4. acoustic

3. What is the stage when the speech organs preserve their position for a certain period of time called?

   1. the on-glide

   2. the off-glide

   3. the recursion

   4. the retention

4. What is setting?

   1. the organic basis of the language

   2. the long-term muscular adjustment of the speaker’s speech apparatus

   3. different varieties of the same language

   4. social imitation

   5. the manner of speech (accent) of the speaker

5. According to the peculiarities of the English language, the following characteristics may be identified:

   1. most of English consonants are alveolar-dental

   2. long English vowels have stable articulation

   3. tip is raised and active.

   4. there are palatalized consonants in the English language

   5. voiceless sounds are pronounced with greater amount of muscular tension

   6. alveolars /t, d, n, s, z, l/ are blade articulations.

6. Which function of speech sounds answers to this description? “Speech sounds help to distinguish words, grammatical forms of words, phrases.”

   1. constitutive

   2. recognitive

   3. distinctive

Тема 3.

1. The allophones, which do not undergo any distinguishable changes in the chain of speech, which are described as the most representative and free from the influence of the neighbouring phonemes, are called

   1. principal

   2. subsidiary

   3. positional

   4. combinatory

2. In the contrastive sense sounds may be considered as

   1. interchangeable/ non-interchangeable

   2. distinctive/non- distinctive

3. Interchangeable sounds fall into ___ (contrastive) oppositions.

   1. distinctive

   2. interchangeable

   3. similar

   4. exclusive

4. Commutation test means

   1. substituting one sound for another in a particular phonological context

   2. being used in mutually exclusive positions

   3. the result of some phonetic process

5. Bilateral/multilateral oppositions are identified according to the

   1. first principle of classification

   2. second principle of classification

   3. third principle of classification

6. Private binary oppositions are the oppositions in which

   1. the members are differentiated by the only distinctive feature

   2. the distinctive feature is increasing or decreasing

   3. the differentiating features are equal in status