LIST OF THE QUESTIONS ON THEORETICAL PHONETICS

THE SOUND STRUCTURE OF THE LANGUAGE

1. What is the largest unit of speech?
2. How many language resources does language consist as a code?
3. How are the people engaged in the study of phonetics called?
4. Variations in pitch, prominence, and tempo are called...
5. What is the largest unit of speech?
6. The result of an act of verbal communication is called ....
7. The basic component of the phonic-substance of language is called...
8. A unit of spoken message larger than a single sound and smaller than a word is called....
9. Pronunciation features in a foreign language influenced by the mother tongue are called…
10. How many aspect does the problem of word stress have?
11. The process of transmitting a verbal message from a speaker to the listener via a channel is called...
12. Lexicon, phonology, and grammar are called...
13. How many components does the phonic substance of language consist of?
14. A discourse consists of at least one...
15. The amount of perceptual prominence given to particular words/syllables in an utterance is called ..
16. What unit of speech corresponds to the phoneme?
17. What features are superimposed on the segmental chain of sounds?
18. Is the statement true or false: English makes use of stressed syllables separated by equal number
of unstressed syllables.
19. Give the name of the founder of phonology
20. A process of using language for communication is called
21. A sequence of words spoken in a single breath, a stretch of speech which has describable melody is
called.
22. Which of the following organs of speech does belong to the roof of the mouth?
23. Which of the following organs of speech does belong to the group of passive organs of speech?
24. Which of the following organs of speech does belong to the group of active organs of speech?
25. How does it call the type transcription that is used in studying English as a specialty?
26. This branch of phonetics is concerned with the study of sound as a result of the activities of speech
organs. It deals with our voice-production mechanism, and the way we produce sounds, and
prosodic phenomena. It studies respiration, phonation (voice-production), articulation and the
mental processes necessary for the mastery of a phonetic system.
27. Arrange the following sounds according to the degree of sonority, from the most sonor to the least
sonor.
28. The unit of spoken message larger than a single sound and smaller than a word is called:
29. The branch of Phonetics that studies the physical properties of speech sound, as transmitted
between mouth and ear.
30. The branch of Phonetics that studies the perceptual response to speech sounds, as mediated by ear,
auditory nerve and brain.

PRONUNCIATION VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

31. A language used as a means of communication by speakers who do i»« have a native language in
common is called
32. How many: concentric circles can the spread of English throughout the world be visualized?
33. The situation when speakers can use both literary pronunciation and their native local accent in
different situations is called
34. The first language of the children of Pidgin speakers is called....
35. How many major literary/cultivated accents are there on fee British Isles?
36. How many million people speak English as their first language/mother tongue?
37. What is the standard of pronunciation for educated speakers in Great Britain?
38. Teaching English where learners addressed are often immigrants to an English-speaking culture is
called
39. A set of pronunciation forms and rules of their usage is called...
40. Is there a World Standard English, a totally uniform, regional, neutral, and prestigious variety at the
international level?
41. The entity of related national variants, dialects and their associated accents is called…
42. What are the two most prestigious accents of English in the world which generally serve as
teaching models for TEFL?
43. How many literary pronunciation accents are there in the USA?
44. A unified entity of pronunciation patterns used for communicative interaction by members of a
speech community sharing a relevant social or geographical attribute and maintaining a set of
phonological characteristics, despite limited phonetic and lexical-incidental variation between the
speakers is called...
45. Teaching English to learners of all types is ...
46. What is the geographical localization of the national pronunciation standard in the UK?
47. Reflection/fixing of actual pronunciation forms and patterns in pronunciation dictionaries and other
references.
48. Individual speech of members of the same language community is called...
49. What is a striking feature of RP/BBC English and GenAm?
50. Are the majority of Standard English speakers in Britain rhotic or non-rhotic?
51. What accent is currently making a great influence on RP?
52. Name the 2 RP vowels which have the highest text frequency of occurrence
53. What phenomenon can be heard in RP in it's quite good ..., football ,etc?
54. What is RP often identified with in the public mind ?
55. What sound combinations undergo affricatization?
56. Which RP diphthong is becoming a positional allophone of the phoneme /ɔ:/?
57. What scholar fist described RP as a hoped for standard?
58. Give the transcription symbol for a glottalized /t/.
59. What kind of assimilation do affricatization and assibilation belong to?
60. Which allophone of /l/ is used in American English?
61. Which American accent prevails in New York?
62. How many consonants are there in GenAm?
63. Is Eastern American rhotic?
64. What century English is the starting point for American English?
65. Which diphthongs are not distinguished in GenAm?
66. What is one of the most characteristic allophones in GenAm?
67. Which geographical attribute does GenAm have?
68. How many vowels are there in GenAm?
69. What is the name of American national pronunciation standard?
70. A stress on the vowel in the penultimate syllable which is not typically stressed in RP is called ...
71. It is considered to be the main variant of literary pronunciation in Great Britain. Its advantages are
that it is easily understood in every part where English is spoken and it is understood more than
any other variant. It is mostly heard in everyday speech of educated people, at English theatres and
on the radio.
72. Which of the types serves as the base for General American pronunciation
73. Which of the accents of English is American based pronunciation standard?
74. Which of the accents of English is English based pronunciation standard?
75. Which of the accents of English is New English based pronunciation standard?
76. How many literary pronunciation accents are there in the USA?
77. What are New Englishes varieties of pronunciation?
78. A language used as a means of communication by speakers who do not have a native language in
common.
79. Read the following abbreviations: ELT, TESL, TEFL.
80. The first language of the children of Pidgin speakers.
81. The language used for the purpose of communication between speakers of mutually unintelligible
languages (usually in the third world) which has been developed out of the mixture of the
languages of the communities concerned.

THE SPEECH SOUNDS

82. How many aspects of speech sounds are distinguished?
83. Grouping speech sounds according to their major articulatory features is called ...
84. From the acoustic point of view, vowels are called the sounds of...
85. What are three different states of the vocal cords?
86. Which are the parts of the tongue?
87. Which are the parts of the roof of the mouth?
88. Name the passive organs of speech.
89. Name the active organs of speech.
90. What is the consonant sound?
91. What are the two consonant classes according to the degree of noise?
92. What is the function of vocal cords in the production of voiced and voiceless consonants?
93. Define every type of obstruction.
94. What consonant sounds are called occlusive?
95. What consonant sounds are called constrictive?
96. What consonant sounds are called occlusive-constrictive?
97. Enumerate the consonant groups according to the place of articulation.
98. How are the forelingual consonants classified according to the work of the tip of the tongue?
99. Why are the occlusive plosive consonants called “stops”?
100. How are the stops divided according to the work of the vocal cords?
101. What are the voiced counterparts of / p,t,k /?
102. What is aspiration?
103. What is palatalization?
104. What do the consonants /p, t, k / have in common?
105. What consonant sounds are called “fricatives”?
106. What are the voiced counterparts of / f, s, θ, ∫ / ?
107. Define / ʧ, ʤ/ according to the all principles of articulation.
108. Enumerate the English sonorants.
109. What is the main feature of sonorous consonant?
110. What do the sonorant have in common with and what differs them from other consonants?
111. What is the subdivision of the sonorous consonants according to the direction of the air stream in
the mouth cavity?
112. What is assimilation?
113. What features of the articulation of a consonant may be affected by assimilation?
114. Name the degrees of assimilation.
115. What is the difference between progressive and regressive assimilation?
116. Which aspect of speech sounds do such properties as frequency, spectrum, intensity, and duration
constitute?
 117. The auditory/sound-perception aspect of speech sounds involves the mechanism of...Sounds
whose phonetic content is predominantly made up by the sound waves produced by their voicing
are called ...
118. Which aspect defines every speech sound as a complex of definite coordinated and differentiated
movements and positions of speech organs?
119. Functional differences between Vs and Cs are defined by their role in...
120. Sounds made with a complete obstruction or stoppage of the airflow coming up from the lungs
are called…
121. Sounds in the production of which the soft palate is lowered, and the air escapes through the nose
are called ..
122. Sounds produced as a result of obstruent articulation involving an obstruction of the air stream
that produces a phonetic effect independent of voicing are called ...
123. The movements and positions necessary for the production of a speech sound constitute
its ...
124. The particular quality of Vs mainly depends on the volume and shape of the ...
125. Complex sounds which consist of two components that correspond to two phases of articulation-
an oral- stop phase followed with a short friction phase- are called ...
126. Realizations of phonemes in definite positions in words are called ...
127. How many consonant phonemes are there in RP?
128. How many vowel phonemes are there in RP?
129. The founder of the phoneme theory is ...
130. The materialistic conception of the phoneme was originated by...
131. Features of phonemes involved in the differentiation of the words are called ...
132. The phoneme is material, real and objective because it really exists in the material form of...
133. What scholar defined the phoneme as a family of sounds?
134. The smallest(i.e. further indivisible into smaller consecutive segments) language unit (sound
type) that exists in the speech of all the members of a given language community as such
speech sounds which are capable of distinguishing one word from another word of the same
language or one grammatical form of a word from another grammatical form of the same word is
called ...
135. The phonemes of a language form a system of...
136. What is the principal function of the phoneme ?
137. The articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are called
138. Allophones which appear as a result of the influence of the neighboring speech sounds
(assimilation, adaptation,, accommodation) are called ...
139. Modifications of a consonant under the influence of a neighboring consonant are termed ...
140. A deletion of a sound in rapid or careless speech is termed ....
141. Connecting of the final sound of one word or syllable to the initial sound of the next one is called ...
142. Modifications of a consonant under the influence of the adjacent vowel or vice versa are called .
143. Inserting of a vowel or consonant segment within an existing string of segments is called ...
144. According to the degree the assimilating C takes on the characteristics of the neighboring C,
assimilation may be ...
145. What is the name of assimilation in which the first consonant and the second consonant in a
cluster fuse and mutually condition the creation of a third consonant with features from both
original consonants?
146. What are the most common types of regressive assimilation in English?
147. A monophthong, half-long, lax, unrounded, front, low/open vowel phoneme of the wide variety.
148. A labial, labio-dentaL, constrictive, fricative, voiceless, fortis consonant phoneme.
149. An alveolar, apical, constrictive, fricative, lateral sonant
150. A monophthong, long, tense, unrounded, central/ mixed, mid vowel phoneme of the narrow
variety.
151. A glottal, constrictive, fricative, voiceless, fortis consonant phoneme.
152. A monophthong, long, tense, unrounded, back, low/open vowel phoneme of the wide variety.
153. A post-alveolar, constrictive, fricative, medial sonant.
154. A monophthong, short, lax, rounded, back advanced, low/open vowel phoneme of the wide
variety.
155. A foreligual, palato-alveolar, constrictive, fricative, voiced, lenis consonant phoneme.
156. A monophthong, long, tense, unrounded, front, high/close vowel phoneme of the narrow variety.
157. A lingual, back lingual, velar, occlusive, plosive nasal sonant.
158. A monophthong, short, lax, unrounded, central/ mixed, mid vowel phoneme of the wide variety.
159. A labial, bilabial, constrictive, fricative, medial sonant.
160. A lingual, backlingual, occlusive, plosive, voiceless, fortis consonant phoneme.
161. A lingual, forelingual, post-alveolar, constrictive, fricative, medial sonant.
162. A monophthongs short, lax, rounded, back, low/open vowel phoneme of the wide variety.
163. A foreligual, interdental, constrictive, fricative , voiceless, fortis consonant phoneme.
164. A voiceless affricate.
165. A monophthong, short, lax, unrounded, central/ mixed, mid vowel phoneme of the wide variety.
166. A monophthong, short, lax, unrounded, front, mid/ half-open vowel phoneme of the narrow
variety.
167. Which of the mentioned below features of a consonant is considered irrelevant?
168. So reduction is realized in:
169. Non-reduced unstressed sounds are often retained in:
170. What principles of articulation are not characteristic for the English language?
171. Which of the elements of English diphthong is called nucleus?
172. What is the number of phonemes in British English?
173. The type of junction between the phonemes of different nature (c-v) is called …
174. The type of junction between the similar groups – cons. + cons. is called …

SYLLABLE
175. Syllables in writing are called…
176. The limit for the number of syllables in English is…
177. The universal syllabic structure in the canonical form is…
178. What sounds have the highest degree of sonority?
179. The division of words into syllables is called...
180. What two types of sounds cannot be split during syllabification?
181. What symbol is used to designate a syllabic consonant?
182. Divide in writing the word speaking.
183. Divide into phonetic syllables the word bottle.
184. What is the characteristic feature of the syllabic structure of the words of old English origin.
185. How is the syllable preceding the stressed syllable designated?
186. How is the syllable following the stressed syllable designated?
187. What are the two commonest structural types of the syllable in English (write their canonical
forms)?
188. The point of this theory of syllabic structure of the word is that in most languages there is a
syllabic phoneme in the centre of the syllable, which is usually a vowel phoneme or, in some
languages, a sonorant. The phonemes preceding or following the syllable peak are called marginal.
The energy, which is the tension of articulation, increases within the range of prevocalic
consonants and then decreases within the range of postvocalic consonants. Therefore, the syllable
can be defined as an arc of articulatory tension.
189. The point of this theory is that the syllable is a sound or group of the sounds that are pronounced
in one chest-puls . There are as many syllables in a word as there are chest-pulses made during the
word .
190. The border line between the syllables is a moment of the weaker expiration
191. Which is the most common type of syllable in English?
192. Which are syllabic English consonants?
193. This theory is based upon the fact that each sound was a definite carrying power. Sounds group
themselves according to their sonority. There are as many syllables as there are peaks of
prominence of sonority.
194. This theory takes into consideration both levels production and perception. Syllable is an arc of
loudness. The peak of the syllable is louder and higher in pitch than the slopes. The organ which is
responsible for the variation of loudness is pharynx . There are as many syllables in a word as
there are arcs of loudness.

WORD STRESS
195. How many factors are important in making the syllable prominent?
196. How many degrees of word stress are singled out in English?
197. What degree of word stress do American phoneticians add to the traditionally recognized degrees
in English?
198. What are languages called which allow certain freedom for placement word stress?
199. Which is the oldest of the English lexical stress tendencies?
200. Which tendency regulates the stressing of borrowed polysyllabic words in English?
201. Which is the name of the tendency which defines the placement of word stress on the root of the
native English words with a prefix with no referential meaning?
202. What tendency defines the stress of the derivative word personal as compared with person!
203. Which syllable of a two-syllable verb is stressed if its second syllable contains a long vowel or a
diphthong
204. Which syllable of a two-syllable noun is stressed when its second syllable contains a short vowel?
205. English word stress is of a complex nature. It is:
206. Which is the place of secondary stress?
207. Which is the most common accentual type of English words?
208. A stress on the vowel in the penultimate syllable which is not typically stressed in RP is called:

RHYTHM
209. Which is the right order of the rhythmical organization of English prose.
210. What are the adjoining unstressed syllables called when they precede the stressed syllable?
211. What are the adjoining unstressed syllables called when they follow the stressed syllable?
212. Which is English type of rhythm?
213. What is the prosodic nucleus of rhythmic group?
214. The number of the rhythmic groups depends on:

INTONATION
215. Where is the focus /the semantic center of an unmarked utterance located on?
216. What is the force component of intonation made by?
217. Which tone can encourage further conversation, be wondering, mildly puzzled, soothing?
218. One or more words closely connected by sense and grammar, but containing only one
strongly stressed syllable and being pronounced in one breath are called a...
219. Which tone is highly implicatory in English?
220. Spoken English is divided into chunks of talk or...
221. Because they are unstressed in the stream of speech, function words exhibit various forms of...
222. What words are accentuated by pitch, length, loudness or a combination of these prosodic features
under normal, or unmarked conditions?
223. What is the core component of intonation?
224. How many rhythmic groups/feet are there in "Thank you for the present'?
225. What tone expresses the speaker's active searching for information?
226. This part of an intonation group determines the semantic value of the intonation group, and
indicates the communicative centre of the intonation group or of the whole sentence.
227. Which of the head patterns is used for normal speech?
228. Where is the semantic centre of an utterance in normal speech located on?
229. What are the emphatic tones?
230. What part of the intonation group goes before the nucleus?
231. What is the corresponding tone for each of these types of the utterances? (Request, Order,
Exclamation, Statement)
232. What is the corresponding tone to each of these questions? (General, Special, Disjunctive,
Alternative)
233. What forms are usually unstressed in the sentence?
234. The type of the utterance stress that is used to arrange words into sentences or intonation groups
phonetically. Together with grammatical and lexical means it expresses the general idea of the
sentence and indicates its communicative center. The nuclear syllable is generally associated with
the last content word of the intonation group.
235. The type of utterance stress, which gives special prominence to a new element in a sentence or an
intonation group.
236. This type of sentence stress increases the effort of expression. It may strengthen the stressed word
making it still prominent. This stress manifests itself mainly on the High Fall or the Rise-Fall of
the nuclear syllable.
237. The part of intonation group formed by stressed and unstressed syllables beginning with the first
stressed syllable is called…
238. The part of intonation group that includes unstressed and half stressed syllables before the first
stressed syllable.
239. The last stressed syllable of the intonation group in which the pitch movement changes. It is
usually of a highest importance: it is on this syllable that the whole pitch pattern centers.
240. The unstressed and half-stressed syllables that follow the nucleus in the intonation group are
called…

PHONETIC STYLES
241. This style is characterized by the predominant use of intellectual intonation patterns. The
characteristic feature of this style is the use of normal or slow speed of utterance and regular
rhythm. It occurs in formal discourse where the task set by the sender of the message is to
communicate information without giving it any emotional or volitional evaluation.
242. In this style intellectual and volitional (or desiderative) intonation patterns are concurrently
employed. The speaker's purpose here is to direct the listener's attention to the message carried in
the semantic component. This style is frequently used, for example, by university lecturers,
schoolteachers, or by scientists in formal and informal discussions.
243. In this style the emotional role of intonation increases, thereby intonation patterns used for
intellectual, volitional and emotional purposes have an equal share. Pauses may be different in
length but long pauses are more common. This style is generally acquired by special training and it
is used, for instance, in stage speech, classroom recitation, and verse speaking or in reading aloud
fiction.
244. This style is characterized by predominance of volitional (or desiderative) intonation patterns
against the background of intellectual and emotional ones. The general aim of this intonation style
is to exert influence on the listener, to convince him that the speaker's interpretation is the only
correct one and to cause him to accept the point of view expressed in the speech.
245. The usage of this style is typical of the English of everyday life. It occurs both within a family
group and in informal external relationships, namely, in the speech of intimate friends or well-
acquainted people. Generally speaking this style, unlike other styles, will allow the occurrence of
the entire range of intonation patterns existing in English.