English 370
Practice Midterm #1

I.  For each of the phonemes below, describe the sound it represents in English in terms of its point of articulation and its manner(s) of articulation.  (30 points)

Example:  /m/ is a bilabial nasal stop.  (/m/ is also a continuant and voiced, and you could add those features to your description.  They would not be necessary, however, since “bilabial, nasal stop” would already be sufficient to describe /m/ and only /m/.)

1.  /g/              

2. /d/               

3. /t /              

4. /ð/               

5. /w/              

6. /ŋ/

II.  For the two sentences below provide: 

a.  a phonemic transcription (18),
b.  a morphemic analysis (bound, free, derivational, inflectional, lexical, functional) (18),  

1.  The well-struck golf ball flew with precision down the fairway.   

2.  John poured a little glass of port for his very thirsty guests.   

III. The following phonetic transcriptions reflect the effects of having applied certain phonological rules to a string of English phonemes.  Your job is to supply a phonemic representation for each (6 points each), and explain what phonological rules were applied to each in order to produce the phonetic sequence in each of these two transcriptions (11 points each):

         1.  [aɪ æftə go] 

2.  [aɪ ʃʊɾə θɔɾə ðæt]

[Note: remember that the phonemic representation shows the phrase before ANY phonological rule like nasalization or vowel-reduction, or assimilation or segment deletion has taken place.  The phonetic transcriptions in 1 and 2 show the effect of such phonological rules having already been applied--you are to work backwards from the phonetic description to reach the phonemic description.] 

Extra Credit (5): 

What is the most frequently occurring phone in English?  Why does it occur so frequently?