Test #1 Tips

Please send any questions about this page to Colin Phillips (colin@udel.edu) or Ted Eastwick (tbear@udel.edu).

Scope of the Test

The test will cover material covered in the class lectures, discussion sections, readings and homework assignments since the beginning of the semester, with the main emphasis on Phonetics and Phonology. Below is a list of some of the most important topics and concepts covered so far. You can use this as a check-list to see if you are prepared for the test. Note: this list is not exhaustive, but it does cover most of the key areas.

The test is worth 10% of the course grade. The test can be completed in the 50 minute class period, but you will be allowed 1 hour to finish it. There will be no make-up tests. Let us repeat this, in case you didn't catch it the first time - there will be no make-up tests.

Format

Examples of the kinds of questions that may be asked include:

• questions requiring analysis of unfamiliar language data (applying methods already practiced)
• multiple-choice or true-false questions
• questions requiring brief written explanations or diagrams
• short answer questions

Remember that we can only give you credit for answering the questions that we ask. So answer the question that is asked, and not some other question. Good efforts and near misses can also receive credit. But answers to phantom questions cannot!

Resources

• Review sessions (question and answer). Wednesday October 7th, 3:30pm in Brown Lab 205 & 7:30pm in Sharp Lab 100. Be sure to come armed with questions! Maybe try the practice phonetics/phonology questions below. We will have prepared a small amount of practice material, but for the most part these sessions will be driven by what you want us to cover. Bring questions, ideas, energy, and maybe a big mug of coffee!
• On-line lecture notes for this class
• Tutoring available
• Prof. William Idsardi's on-line study notes
• Prof. Caroline Heycock's on-line lecture slides (requires free Adobe Acrobat Reader software)

Some Examples of Useful Study Activities

To succeed in this, as in many other areas, you do not need to just work hard and feel that you have suffered and therefore must benefit. Rather you must study intelligently: if you use a small amount of time effectively you can benefit much more than if you study for a long while ineffectively. If you don't believe this: try it, and you'll be surprised; if you do believe it, then remember to practice what you believe! In order to learn effectively, you must study actively. Some ways of doing this...

• Before reviewing your notes (or after a quick 2-minute scan), try to create for yourself on a sheet of paper a table or diagram of the main points and concepts in that area. As yourself what the best evidence for these points is.
• Using the list of topics below, scribble down for yourself what you already know about these topics. As you write down one thing, does this start to bring other things to mind? If you can remember a little about some topic, but are not sure about a particular aspect of this, write down questions for yourself to look up, before going to the notes/textbook.
• Imagine that you have to explain about phonetics (or phonology, or whatever) to another student who has missed a number of classes due to sickness ... how would you go about explaining this area? What examples would you use to support your points?
• Look in the textbook at an exercise that we did not already cover, and see if you can answer it.
• Imagine that you are constructing this test yourself (and that you are not intent on evilly creating trick questions): ask yourself what kinds of questions you would ask. Could you answer these questions?
• Take advantage of the on-line lecture notes and the study notes prepared by Prof. William Idsardi and Tom Purnell (see the 'Study Notes' link above).

Remember also, that the instructor and TA can help, too: come to office hours, send email or arrange an appointment.

Some Not Particularly Useful Study Activities

• Reading the textbook or your notes straight through from beginning to end, passively. Just because this is unpleasant, it does not mean that it is good for you!
• Anything else which will lead you to be sitting staring blankly at writing as your eyes droop uncontrollably. If your studying is getting like this, then you're wasting your time!
• Blindly committing lists of facts to memory. This is not medical school!

A Note on Pinker's Book

Steven Pinker's book "The Language Instinct" contains a lively overview of many of the topics that have been covered in class. In doing so, Pinker provides hundreds of illustrative examples. A number of people have mentioned that they are worried that they cannot memorize all that is in Pinker. -- You are not expected to commit the Pinker readings to memory, but you are expected to have read and understood the assigned chapters enough to answer multiple-choice questions, and to answer short essay questions about topics that he discusses (e.g. why he views language as an instinct; prescriptive and descriptive grammar).

Check-list of Topics

Introduction

• Language as a human instinct
• Prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar
• Human and animal languages
• Syndromes/brain injuries which selectively impair or spare language abilities
• Critical Period hypothesis (Genie)

  Readings: Class notes; Pinker - Chapters 1, 2, 12; Fromkin & Rodman - Chapter 1 (pp.14-26)

Languages of the World

• Diversity of languages
• Ways of grouping languages (history, geography, grammatical features etc.)
• Language Universals and Implicational Universals (how they can help a language learner)

  Readings: Class notes; Pinker - Chapter 8

Phonetics

• Transcribing English words and sentences using the International Phonetic Alphabet
• Describing how sounds are produced
• Describing sounds in terms of phonetic features
• Describing similarities and differences between pairs of sounds, in terms of phonetic features
• Why English spelling is not a particularly useful representation of the sounds of English

  Readings: Class notes; Fromkin & Rodman - Chapter 6 (pp.213-240)

Phonology

• Difference between phonemes and allophones
• Sound alternations: differing pronunciations of phoneme in different environments
• Finding minimal pairs (if phonemes contrast)
• Finding sounds in complementary distribution (if sounds are allophones of one phoneme)
• Writing phonological rules
• ...any of the above applied to set of data from an unfamiliar language

  Readings: Class notes; Fromkin & Rodman - Chapter 7 (pp.253-268; pp.279-302)

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Some Practice Phonetics/Phonology Questions

Here are some sample questions to give you some practice with questions in phonetics and phonology. Click on the highlighted link at the very bottom of this page to get to the practice problems. Bring along your solutions to these problems to the Wednesday review sessions, and we can discuss your answers. [Questions will be posted here following discussion section meetings on Monday 10/5].

Hints for sorting through phonological data

Here are some steps to take in analyzing phonological data from an unfamiliar language to figure out which sounds are contrastive (i.e. based on distinct phonemes) and which sounds are allophones of the same phoneme.

1) Look for minimal pairs; they signal that two sounds are contrastive and need to be stored as two different underlying phonemes.

2) If you suspect that two sounds may be allophones (two surface forms of the same underlying phoneme), list the environments where each allophone occurs. Once each list is complete (i.e. you have given the environments for every occurence of the allophones), attempt to make a generalization about the environments in which each allophone occurs. For example, a consonant might only occur before the vowels /i/ and /u/. Instead of listing two different environments for this allophone, we could make the generalization that the consonant occurs only before [+high] vowels.

Some examples of environments that trigger phonological rules, based on examples seen in class:

• Syllable-position (e.g. English aspiration of voiceless stops in syllable-initial position only)
• Preceding or following sound (e.g. nasalization of English vowels when followed by nasal consonant; Hebrew /b/ --> [v] when preceded by a vowel)
• Effect of both preceding or following sound (e.g. Mokilese devoicing of high vowels (/i/ and /u/) when both preceded and followed by voiceless consonants)
• Effect of stressed syllables (e.g. English flapping: /t/ --> [d] when preceding vowel is stressed and following vowel is unstressed)
• Conditioning by a specific feature (e.g. English lengthening of /i/ when followed by a voiced consonant; English use of [-t] pronunciation of past tense suffix when attached to a stem ending in a voiceless consonant)

3) Compare the environments for each allophone to determine whether or not they are in complementary distribution. If they are, then we can be fairly certain that we are dealing with different allophones of a single phoneme.

4) Write the rule(s) which will derive the various allophones from the underlying phoneme. In deciding which symbol to use to represent the underlying phoneme, choose the form which makes it easiest to state the phonological rule simply.

5) Double-check to make sure that the rules you have written can account for all of the data that you are given.