linguisitcs help

Question

Language X has the following properties (assume everything else is similar to English):

1. Word-final obstruent devoicing (voiced obstruents → voiceless / _#)
2. A five-vowel system /ɑ i e o u/
3. Does not allow complex onsets or complex codas

For the next three questions, assuming properties of cross-language transfer, which of the transcriptions is the best representation of how you would expect the following English words to be pronounced by an L2 speaker who is a native speaker of Language X? The canonical English form is given.

1. Assume that the minimum number of changes is made - a change is only made if the original form results in something that would not be acceptable in Language X.
2. In other words, the answer for the English word 'bee' [bi] would not be changed at all because it obeys all requirements of Language X.
3. There may be other possible (and equally good) options not listed. You should choose the one choice that is the best of the listed options.

Gloss: “windows”

Canonical English: [wɪndowz]

What is the most likely form to be pronounced by a native speaker of Language X?

Gloss: “postdate”

Canonical English: [powstdejt]

What is the most likely form to be pronounced by a native speaker of Language X?

Gloss: “bread”

Canonical English: [brɛd]

What is the most likely form to be pronounced by a native speaker of Language X?

Answer 1

You would need to look at the options and choose the best one. I have done these assuming that this language has syllable parameters congruent to English. The first one is unambiguous. In [wɪn.dowz], [z] is a word-final voiced obstruent, so it becomes devoiced, producing [s]. Since [ɪ] is not acceptable, it will probably be realized as [i], giving us [win.dows]. The other two involve consonant clusters, so you will need to look at the options given. For [powst.dejt], we have a complex coda [st] in the first syllable. In a natural language we would likely expect for this to give way to either [s] or [z] depending on the surrounding sounds. In this case, we would probably expect [z] because the next consonant is [d] which is a voiced stop. But in this assignment you will probably be offered [powsdejt] or maybe [powtdejt] depending on how arbitrarily/unnaturally phoneticized the example words tend to be in your book. The important thing for this one is that you make sure the answer you pick has no consonant clusters within the same syllable boundary. We have the same kind of thing with [brɛd]. There are more complex phonology-based hypotheses we could make about how this onset would be affected in a natural language, but since this is an example from a book, you are probably going to be offered [bed] or [red]. The important thing is to remember that complex onsets are not allowed and that [ɛ] is not an accepted vowel. Hope this helps! If you need any tutoring in linguistics, Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, or any of the other subjects I tutor, please reach out. I am still looking for my first job on Wyzant.