Final Assessment Questions on “Theoretical phonetics” Card-1 Connection of Phonetics with Other Sciences

just –> jus must –> mus Short sound ‘o’ is often changed to sound more like a short ‘a’. For example:
hot // got // dot // a lot // not
2.General principles of consonant formation.
The general principles of consonant formation are different from those of vowels formation. The following are three most important principles.
1. An obstacle is created in one of the supra-laryngal cavities.
2. The muscular tension is concentrated in the place (or places) of obstruction.3. A stronger air stream is required in articulating consonants. Since an impediment is an essential principle of consonant formation, we classify consonants according to the type of obstacle. In most languages the following three types of impediments are possible:1. Complete closure at some point or other. Consonants of this type are called stops. The different kinds of stops are a result of the differences in the articulating organ (lips of tongue), in the manner of forming the impediment, the kind of resonance, the manner of releasing the closure (occlusive or obstructive), etc.2. Narrowing (constriction) of the air passage at some point or other. As a result of the differences in the place of articulation, the size and shape of the narrowing, we have various types of constrictive consonants.3. A moving obstacle, due to which air does not pass out in an uninterrupted stream; the articulating organ gives a series of taps against a passive organ. Consonants of this type are called trilled. They may be produced by means of vibrations of the tip of the tongue, the uvula or the lips. The Russian [p]-phoneme is an example of a trilled consonant. Trilled consonants are not characteristic of B.R.P.The method of creating an obstacle determines the manner of articulation 
Card-9
1.Dichotomic Classification of the Acoustic Distinctive Features of English . The theory of distinctive features, which was suggested by Jakobson-Fant-Halle, is known as the acoustic classification. This theory is based on the results of the spectrographic (acoustic) and X-ray (articulatory) investigation. Each feature is described in articulatory and acoustic levels (including perception). The dichotomic (or binary-meaning to choose two elements or a pair of elements in logic sense) theory has many other shortcomings. Each of the distinctive features involves a choice between two terms of opposition. The mark (+) means “yes”, (-) - “no”, (0) - both distinctive features are possible. In linguistics, a distinctive feature is the most basic unit of phonological structure that distinguishes one sound from another within a language. For example, the feature [voice] distinguishes the two bilabial plosives: [p] and [b]. There are many different ways of defining and arranging features into feature systems: some deal with only one language while others are developed to apply to all languages.Distinctive features are grouped into categories according to the natural classes of segments they describe: major class features, laryngeal features, manner features, and place features. These feature categories in turn are further specified on the basis of the phonetic properties of the segments in question.For phonemes to be in a particular natural class, they have to share the same distinctive features such as articulation and/or sound similar to each other. We can find distinctive features between two words by finding the minimal pair between them. The minimal pair are when two words sound the same, but they are different in definition because the pair has different phonemes from each other.In recent developments[when?] to the theory of distinctive features, phonologists have proposed the existence of single-valued features. These features, called univalent or privative features, can only describe the classes of segments that are said to possess those features, and not the classes that are without them.