Define what it means for a phonetic contrast to be 'relevant.'
A contrast is relevant when it makes a difference in the meaning of a word.
100
Give an example of a minimal pair and identify the one sound that differs.
Hat and cat — they differ only in the first sound: /h/ vs. /k/. (Accept any valid minimal pair.)
100
State Assumption #1 that we make when testing minimal pairs.
The sound stream must be segmentable into unique and identifiable units.
100
How many phonemes does English have, and what are phonemes?
English has 40 phonemes. Phonemes are groups of sounds treated as one sound in a language.
100
Give an example of a word in free variation and explain what that means.
'Route' — it can be pronounced /ruːt/ or /raʊt/ in the same context, and the meaning stays the same either way.
200
Give an example of how distinctiveness applies to written letters.
The letters 'A' and 'a' look different but we treat them as the same letter — most differences in writing don't matter.
200
What is a minimal pair?
Two words that mean different things but differ in exactly one sound.
200
State Assumption #2 that we make when testing minimal pairs.
Both sequences (words) must be of equal length.
200
What is the difference between a phoneme and a phone?
A phoneme is a sound category. Phones are the different ways that phoneme can actually be pronounced.
200
What is free variation?
When a word can be pronounced with two different sounds in the same context without any change in meaning.
300
What does our brain do with sound variations that aren't important?
Our brain filters them out. We can make an infinite range of sounds, but we only notice the ones that are meaningful.
300
Are 'knight' and 'light' a minimal pair? Explain why or why not.
Yes — even though 'knight' has 6 letters and 'light' has 5, both words have 3 sounds. Minimal pairs are measured in sounds, not letters.
300
Why does Assumption #2 require both words to be the same length in sounds?
So we can align the sounds at each position and compare them directly with each other.
300
Give examples of words where 'L' is the same phoneme but a different phone.
File, slight, wealth, and listen — each has a slightly different 'L' sound (phone), but they all represent the same phoneme /l/.
300
What does it mean when a sound variation is 'conditioned by context'?
It means the variation is NOT in free variation — the surrounding sounds determine which pronunciation is used.
400
What does it mean that sounds exist on a 'continuum'?
Sounds are continuous and infinite in range, but our brains only look out for a limited set of distinctions within that range.
400
How many minimal pairs would you mathematically need to prove all 40 English phonemes are unique?
780 minimal pairs.
400
State Assumption #3 that we make when testing minimal pairs.
We can actually 'exchange' particular occurrences of sounds in the stream — swapping one for another.
400
What is the difference between narrow transcription and broad transcription?
Narrow transcription captures individual phones (fine detail). Broad transcription uses phonemes — information about sound structure is lost, but the message remains.
400
What are allophones? Give an example from the presentation.
Allophones are sounds that belong to the same phoneme. Example: In Maasai, [p], [b], and [β] are all allophones of /p/.
500
In your own words, explain the concept of distinctiveness as described in the presentation.
Distinctiveness is the idea that not all sound differences need to be perceived — our brains only register the distinctions that matter for meaning.
500
Why must minimal pairs consist of entire words rather than just single sounds?
Because we're testing whether a contrast changes word meaning. A phonetic contrast is only relevant if it changes the meaning of a whole word.
500
Using /hæt/ and /kæt/ as an example, demonstrate how Assumption #3 works.
We swap out the /h/ and /k/ sounds between the two words. The rest of the word — /æt/ — stays exactly the same in both.
500
Define a phoneme in a complete sentence.
A phoneme is a set of phones that are all treated as one sound in a given language — it represents a sound category, not a single fixed pronunciation.
500
What is the main theoretical problem with defining phonemes using allophones?
There's no theoretical justification for choosing which allophone should be the 'main' representative of the phoneme — there's no reason to prefer one sound over another.