Building Blocks of Language Learning

Education · 10 questions

Ten multiple-choice questions on phonetics, morphology, and language-learning vocabulary.

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1. What does the vertical axis of the IPA vowel chart represent?

   1. Vocal fold vibration
   2. Tongue height
   3. Lip rounding
   4. Tongue frontness
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   B) Tongue height

2. What is the smallest unit of language that carries meaning or grammatical function?

   1. Lexeme
   2. Morpheme
   3. Phoneme
   4. Syllable
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   B) Morpheme

3. Which process forms “walked” from “walk” in English?

   1. Conversion
   2. Compounding
   3. Derivation
   4. Inflection
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   D) Inflection

4. Which feature is generally not used to distinguish word meanings in Turkish?

   1. Lexical tone
   2. Vowel length
   3. Consonant voicing
   4. Word stress
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   A) Lexical tone

5. In language learning, what kind of unit does “lexical chunk” refer to?

   1. Formulaic word sequence
   2. Syntactic category
   3. Phonetic symbol
   4. Single morpheme
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   A) Formulaic word sequence

6. What place of articulation is associated with /n/ in English?

   1. Alveolar
   2. Bilabial
   3. Velar
   4. Glottal
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   A) Alveolar

7. In morphology, what does the term “allomorph” refer to?

   1. Sound variant of a phoneme
   2. Semantic role
   3. Variant form of a morpheme
   4. Word class
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   C) Variant form of a morpheme

8. In second-language acquisition research, what does “input” refer to?

   1. Learner's internal knowledge
   2. Assessment criterion
   3. Teaching method
   4. Language data encountered by the learner
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   D) Language data encountered by the learner

9. In phonetics, what feature does “voicing” describe?

   1. Vowel height
   2. Tongue-tip position
   3. Vocal fold vibration
   4. Airflow direction
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   C) Vocal fold vibration

10. What does “incidental vocabulary learning” describe?

    1. Exam-focused study
    2. Explicit word instruction
    3. Intentional word memorization
    4. Incidental word acquisition
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    D) Incidental word acquisition