GATE Humanities and Social Sciences - Linguistics Practice Quiz

Question 1

In English, the aspirated [pʰ] in 'pin' and the unaspirated [p] in 'spin' are best analyzed as

Accepted Answer

allophones of the same phoneme /p/ conditioned by position

Question 2

Which pair provides the strongest evidence that two sounds belong to different phonemes in a language?

Accepted Answer

A minimal pair differing only in those two sounds with different meanings

Question 3

A student claims: 'If two sounds are articulatorily very different, they cannot be allophones of the same phoneme.' Which evaluation is best?

Accepted Answer

The claim is generally too strong; although phonetic similarity matters, distributional and systemic evidence can still motivate allophonic analysis

Question 4

In a language, [d] and [ɾ] alternate within related forms: [d] appears after nasals, while [ɾ] appears intervocalically. No minimal pairs contrast them. What is the strongest analysis?

Accepted Answer

They are allophones of one phoneme, with the underlying form chosen to best capture the alternation and distribution

Question 5

In a language, [l] occurs before vowels, while [ɫ] occurs only syllable-finally. There are no minimal pairs contrasting them. The most economical analysis is that

Accepted Answer

[l] and [ɫ] are allophones of one phoneme because their distribution is predictable

GATE Humanities and Social Sciences - Linguistics

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