1. How the exam is structured
Exam #1 will be given M Oct 2 in class.
The exam will include:
- short questions to test your knowledge of facts, terms, and concepts
- These could be short explanations, multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, true/false, etc.
- problem-solving questions to test your ability to apply those concepts
The exam is closed-book, closed-notes. As part of the exam, you will be given a list of the phonetic symbols for the sounds that you are responsible for, but you will need to know their properties (such as voiced, low, etc.)
You may be asked to apply what you know to a new or unfamiliar situation.
2. Course content covered by the exam
The following are suggested review topics to help you organize your studying and preparation. You may wish to review lecture outline slides and recitation activities, your own notes, assigned readings, and past assignments and their feedback.
(1) The study of linguistics
- Prescriptive grammar, descriptive grammar, and mental grammar
- Define these terms and understand the differences between them
- Apply the appropriate term to examples of ways of looking at language
- Linguistics as science
- Understand how we are defining data in this course
- Understand the general process of testing a model by examining its predictions
(2) Phonetics
You are welcome to make individual consonant and vowel noises during the exam (but not a whole word or sentence that tells your neighbor an answer...).
- The parts of the vocal tract (see Figure 2.4 on p 26 of CL)
- Be able to interpret a diagram like this and identify what consonant is being produced
- American English consonants (Table 2.12 on p 38 of CL, but not [ʍ]
or [ʔ])
- Know what sound each of these IPA symbols stands for
- Be able to describe each of these consonants in terms of the crucial four (or five) properties laid out in the slides
- American English vowels (Figure 2.11 on p 42 of CL)
- Know what sound each of these IPA symbols stands for
- Be able to describe each of these consonants in terms of the crucial four properties laid out in the slides
- Given a familiar word in English spelling, be able to:
- Match it to a phonetic transcription
- Find and correct a major error in a phonetic transcription
(3) Phonology
- Describe a group of segments (also called phones or speech sounds),
as a natural class, using sound properties
- Reminder: In the context of phonetics, we want to describe sounds in as much detail as possible to understand how they are produced. But when we are working with phonology (mental grammar of sound patterns), we want our natural classes, rules, etc. to be as general and simple as possible. So, when you are describing a natural class or stating a rule, use as few properties as you can (while making sure that your claim isn't so general that it's inaccurate).
- The properties to know:
- The consonant and vowel properties as noted in (2) above
- Some useful additional sound properties newly introduced in the phonology unit (Ch 3): strident (=sibilant), obstruent, sonorant, consonant, vowel
- Analyzing the distribution of two sounds to determine
whether they belong to two separate phonemes or are allophones of
the same phoneme
- What steps do we follow in our analysis procedure?
- Stating a phonological rule using sound properties/natural classes
and rule notation
- Stating a rule that applies to a whole natural class (not just to individual speech sounds)
(4) First-language acquisition of phonology
- The general course of phonological development
- What general stages do children pass through, in perception and production?
- How can we tell if children have a contrast between two phonemes even when they don't pronounce them differently?
- Applying your knowledge of properties, natural classes, and phonological rules to analyze a child-specific phonological pattern in a data set
3. Some further resources
- Tips and Tools for learning, studying, and exams, from the Learning Center at UNC-CH