LIN 201 – Nature and Study of Language
Homework #5
Family name, First name: ______________________________
SUID: _________________
Recitation Section: ________
This is a homework assignment that you will complete electronically and submit by uploading to
Blackboard. As stated in your syllabus, this assignment is worth 4% of your overall course grade. This
assignment is worth 20 points and is due BEFORE the beginning of your recitation.
Part 1: Segmental Phonology [10pts]
The following data set illustrates a phenomenon observed for liquid sounds in English. In the
data, you will see two types of “l” (l vs. l̥). The regular [l] is pronounced with voicing, while the
[l̥] containing an under-ring is pronounced voiceless. You task is to answer the step-by-step
questions below to decide whether the two sounds create a meaningful contrast between words,
or if they are simply predictable, contextual variants of the same sound.
blu blue pl̥aw plow
blæk black pl̥ej play
ɡlim gleam kl̥æp clap
ɡlɛn glen kl̥ir clear
slow slow flæt flat
flɔrəl floral slaʊtʃ slouch
slɪp slip flɪntʃ flinch
1. Do you find any minimal pairs in the data? Remember that minimal pairs are words like sip
vs. zip where different meaningful words are created simply by changing two sounds. [1pts]
2. Make a list of the sounds that can appear immediately before [l]. [2pts]
3. Make a list of the sounds that can appear immediately before [l̥]. [2pts]
4. Do the environments in which [l] and [l̥] occur have any overlap in the sounds that come
before them? [1pt]
5. Based on what you determined in Questions 1 through 4, do [l] and [l̥] create meaningful
contrasts between words [A]? Or, are they are simply variants of the same sound whose
distribution is predictable [B]? [2pts]
6. Based on what you determined thus far, compare the behavior of [r] and [r̥] in the following
data. Is the behavior of these sounds the same or different compared to the “l” data above?
Explain why or why not. [2pts]
bru brew pr̥awd proud
ɡrin green kr̥ip creep
drɪp drip tr̥ɪp trip
Part 2: Morphology [8pts]
A key distinction discussed in lecture concerns those morphemes that are free vs. bound.
Describe in your own words what it means to be a free morpheme vs. a bound morpheme [4pts].
For each type, identify types of morphemes that belongs within each group [2pts].
When considering the word re-schedul-ing, which contains three morphemes, which morphemes
in this words are free, and which are bound? [2pts]

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