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Note 1: Course content changes from year to year. Questions on examinations from previous years may not be relevant to this year's course material.

(40) 1.

Explain the difference between the following terms, providing examples where possible:

(10) 2.

Explain the critical age hypothesis, remarking on its validity as a theory.

(5) 3.

Provide what you consider to be one particularly distinctive feature of the following phonemes (do not use [+ syllabic] or [+ consonantal] ).

(10) 4.

Write the following words in phonetic transcription.

(10) 5.

Write the following sentences in regular English spelling.

Note: This software does not support IPA symbols, so the question cannot be given here. For a copy of the test sentences, see Prof. Burnett.

(16) 6.

Examine the following words of Tongan, a Polynesian language:

(a) On the basis of these data, determine whether Tongan [s] and [t] are allophones of a single phoneme or are two separate phonemes. If you find that they are allophones of the same phoneme, state the rule that describes the distribution of each allophone. If they are different phonemes, justify your answer. (In Tongan all syllables must end in a vowel.)

(b) In each of the following Tongan words, one sound has been replaced by a blank. This sound is either [s] or [t]. Without more knowledge of Tongan than you were able to figure out from (a), is it possible to make an educated guess as to which of these sounds fits in the blank? If so, provide the sound; if not, explain why.

__ili	'fishing net'	fe__e	'lump'
__uku	'to place'	lama__i	'to ambush'

 

 

(c) In the course of this century, Tongan has borrowed many words from English and has adapted them to fit the phonological structure of its words. Here are a few examples:

kasete	'gazette'	su	'shoe'
tisi	'dish'	koniseti	'concert'
sosaieti	'society'	pata	'butter'
salati	'salad'	suka	'sugar'
masolo	'marshall'	sika	'cigar'
sekoni	'second'	taimani	'diamond'

 

How does the phonemic status of [s] and [t] differ in borrowed words and in native Tongan words? Write an integrated statement about the status of [s] and [t] in Tongan. (Your statement will have to include information about which area of the Tongan vocabulary each part of the rule applies to.)

(9) 7.

State the rule which will explain the change from the underlying forms (phonemic representations) to the surface forms (phonetic representations) which follow.

Note: In this exercise, [a~] represents nasalization.

1. / bab / -> [bab] "bob" / bam / -> [ba~m] "bomb"

Rule:

2.

compete	->	competition
maintain	->	maintenance
telegraph	->	telegraphy
analysis	->	analytic
phone	->	phonetic

 

Rule:

3.

bike	->	bide
leak	->	league
root	->	rude

Rule:

Linguistics 3001, Mid-term examination 2, March 18, 1996

1. (20)

Indicate concisely the difference between the following terms (do 5 of the 6):

2.

Consider the following Persian words with their English glosses.

zende	'alive'	zendegi	'life'
sayeste	'worthy'	sayestegi	'worthiness'
xaste	'tired'	xastegi	'fatigue'
mard	'man'	mardi	'manliness'
bacce	'child'	baccegi	'childhood'

a. (1) Is there more than one bound morpheme?

b. (4) Explain, using linguistic terms, how the abstract nouns in column B are derived from the nouns and adjectives in column A.

3. (5)

Which process of word formation was used to create each of the following words?

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