Exam answers notes

Phonetics is the scientific study of speech sounds: how they are made in the mouth, how they travel as sound-waves, and how they are heard. Subramaniam places it inside linguistics as the science of the spoken side of language, not of spelling. English spelling is a weak map of sound: put /pʊt/ and but /bʌt/ look alike and do not rhyme.

Phonetics has three branches. Articulatory phonetics studies how the body makes a sound — lungs, vocal cords, tongue, lips. Organs of speech, vowels and consonants belong to this branch. Acoustic phonetics studies the sound-wave: frequency (how high the pitch is) and amplitude (how loud it is). Auditory phonetics studies how the ear and the brain receive the sound. English speech uses a pulmonic egressive air-stream: air is pushed out from the lungs. If the vocal cords vibrate, the sound is voiced (/b/, /z/, all vowels). If they stay apart, it is voiceless (/p/, /s/, /h/).

Phonetic symbols are the letters of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) used to write speech. One symbol stands for one sound. Ordinary English spelling uses 26 letters for far more sounds; the letter c is /k/ in cat and /s/ in city. IPA does not give one letter two jobs of that kind. A dictionary prints the pronunciation of a word in these symbols.

RP English has 44 phonemes in Subramaniam’s count: 12 monophthongs (pure vowels) /iː ɪ e æ ɑː ɒ ɔː ʊ uː ʌ ɜː ə/, 8 diphthongs /eɪ aɪ ɔɪ əʊ aʊ ɪə eə ʊə/, and 24 consonants. A diphthong is one gliding vowel, written with two IPA letters that count as one sound: /eɪ/ in day. Slashes / / mark a phoneme: ship /ʃɪp/, sheep /ʃiːp/. A colon ː after a vowel marks length. The mark ˈ is primary stress; ˌ is secondary stress. IPA /j/ is the sound in yes, not the letter j in jam (that is /dʒ/).

A vowel is a speech sound made with a free passage of air through the mouth; the tongue shapes the cavity but does not stop or rub the air. All RP vowels are voiced. A consonant is made with a closure or a narrow opening: stop, friction, nasal, lateral, or approximant. Place names where the obstruction sits (bilabial, labio-dental, dental, alveolar, post-alveolar, palatal, velar, glottal). Manner names how the air is treated. /w/ is labial-velar; RP /r/ is post-alveolar.

Three contrasts Indian speakers often merge. Dental /θ ð/ are friction with the tongue on the teeth: thin /θɪn/ is not tin /tɪn/. /v/ is labio-dental friction; /w/ is a rounded approximant — vest /vest/ is not west /west/. Many Indian languages use retroflex /ʈ ɖ/; RP /t d/ are alveolar, made on the ridge, not curled back. The RP symbol stands for that sound; that is why two words stay two words.

Word stress (word accent in Subramaniam) is the extra force on one syllable of a word. A syllable is a beat with a vowel at its centre: tea has one, teacher two, education four. In a word of two or more syllables, one beat is stronger — the primary stress, marked ˈ before that syllable. A long word may also carry secondary stress ˌ. Stress is not spelling, and it is not intonation. Intonation is the tune of a whole phrase. Stress is which syllable inside the word is strong.

English uses stress to keep words apart. ˈrecord /ˈrekɔːd/ (noun: the disc or the file) against reˈcord /rɪˈkɔːd/ (verb: to put on file). ˈpresent /ˈpreznt/ against preˈsent /prɪˈzent/. ˈobject /ˈɒbdʒɪkt/ against obˈject /əbˈdʒekt/. Words in -tion, -sion, -ic take stress on the syllable just before the suffix: eduˈcation, phoˈnetic. A noun–verb pair such as ˈrecord / reˈcord shows both beats.

Intonation is the rise and fall of pitch across a phrase. The stretch of speech under one tune is a tone group. Inside it there may be a pre-head, a head, a nucleus (the main pitch movement, usually the last important content word), and a tail. In “She ˈteaches ˈEnglish,” the nucleus is ˈEnglish. Stress chooses the strong beats; intonation chooses the direction of the last strong beat.

Subramaniam uses four kinetic tones. A falling tone is the tune of a finished statement, a command, and a wh-question: “She is ˈhere.” “What is your ˈname?” A rising tone is the tune of a yes–no question and of a list that has not ended: “Is she ˈhere?” A fall-rise marks reservation: “I ˈcan” (I can, though there is a condition). A rise-fall marks surprise or strong agreement: “ˈReally.” A question mark on the page does not always mean a rise: “Where do you ˈlive?” is a wh-question and normally falls.

Morphology studies how words are built from morphemes. A prefix is attached at the front. It usually changes meaning without changing word-class: happy (adjective) → unhappy (still an adjective); write → rewrite. Common negative prefixes: un-, in- / im- / il- / ir- (im- before p/b/m, il- before l, ir- before r), dis-, mis-. Other prefixes: re- again, pre- before, over- too much.

A suffix is attached at the end. Inflectional suffixes mark grammar and do not make a new dictionary-word: plural -s (books), past -ed (walked), -ing, comparative -er. The word-class stays. Derivational suffixes often make a new word and may change class: -ness (kindness), -ment (payment), -tion (education), -ful (careful), -ly (quickly). Disagreement = dis- + agree + -ment: prefix of opposition, noun-making suffix. A prefix is not a preposition: in the room is the preposition in; incomplete is the prefix in-.

The traditional eight parts of speech are noun, pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, interjection. Identification follows the job in that sentence, not a dictionary label copied once. The same letters can change class: light is a noun in “a light in the room,” an adjective in “a light bag,” a verb in “they light the lamp.” Articles a, an, the sit with the noun; for identification they are named as articles.

In “The young student quietly opened the heavy door”: The — article; young — adjective; student — noun; quietly — adverb of manner; opened — finite verb (past); the — article; heavy — adjective; door — noun. There is no pronoun, preposition, conjunction or interjection in this line. A noun names; an adjective fits “a ___ door”; a verb changes with tense (opens / opened); an adverb often ends in -ly and answers how.

A sentence pattern is the order of slots in a clause. The five letters are S subject, V finite verb, O object, C complement, A adverbial. The verb decides which slots follow. If you can ask what? or whom? after the verb and get a noun that is not describing the subject, you have O. If the word after the verb is an adjective or a noun that is still the same person as S, you have C. If it answers where / when / how?, you have A.

Seven patterns. SV: The child sleeps. SVO: She reads a book. SVC: She is a teacher. SVA: She is in Bikaner. SVOO: She gave him a pen. SVOC: They elected her captain. SVOA: She put the book on the table. “She became a doctor” is SVC. “She visited a doctor” is SVO. Complement after be describes S; object after a transitive verb is a different person or thing.

A determiner sits at the front of a noun phrase and marks the noun: which one, whose, how many, whether known or not. The set includes articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers and numerals. They are not adjectives of quality: old in “the old book” is an adjective; the is the determiner. Two determiners of the same slot do not stack: we write my book, not the my book. Countable singular nouns need a determiner: a book or the book or my book, not a bare book as a whole noun phrase.

A/an is indefinite: first mention, one of a class, a profession — “She is a teacher.” Choose an before a vowel sound, not merely a vowel letter: an hour, an MBA, a university, a one-rupee note. The is definite: unique (the sun), already mentioned, a superlative, rivers (the Ganga), mountain ranges (the Himalayas). Zero article: general uncountable and plural (Water is useful. Books are costly.), most names, a single mountain (Mount Everest). Some in a positive sentence; any in a negative or a question: “I have some paper.” “I do not have any paper.”

Tense is the form of the verb that places the action or state in time. Twelve forms: three times (present, past, future) × four aspects (simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous). Present simple: habit, fact — “She writes every day.” Present continuous: now — “She is writing now.” Present perfect: past with present result — “She has written the letter.” Present perfect continuous: duration up to now — “She has been writing for an hour.” Past simple: finished past — “She wrote yesterday.” Past continuous: “She was writing at five.” Past perfect: earlier of two past acts — “She had written before he came.” Past perfect continuous: “She had been writing for an hour when he came.” Future simple: “She will write tomorrow.” Future continuous: “She will be writing at five.” Future perfect: “She will have written by Monday.” Future perfect continuous: “She will have been writing for an hour by five.”

A present perfect is not used with a finished past-time word: “She has written yesterday” is not standard English. The correct forms are “She wrote yesterday” or “She has written the letter.” State verbs are not normally continuous: “I know her,” not “I am knowing her.” When both acts are past, the earlier takes past perfect: “When he arrived, she had left.”

Modals are helping verbs that add the speaker’s attitude to the main verb: ability, permission, possibility, obligation, advice, habit. The set is can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, ought to, and the semi-modals need, dare, used to. A modal does not take -s in the third person: “She can write,” not “She cans write.” The main verb after a modal is the base form, without to — except ought to, used to and have to. Two modals do not sit together: we do not write “She might can come.”

Can: present ability, permission, general possibility — “She can swim.” “You can go.” Must: obligation the speaker feels, or a strong deduction — “You must wear the card.” “He is not in class; he must be in the library.” Must not = prohibition; no obligation is need not or don’t have to. Should (and ought to): advice, duty, expectation — “You should revise Unit 1.” Dare as a modal is chiefly negative or interrogative: “She dare not speak.” Time sits on the pair, not on a tense-ending of the modal. Each modal is named by its use: ability, permission, possibility, obligation, advice.

Concord is the rule that the finite verb matches the subject in number and person. The finite verb follows the subject, not a noun that sits nearer the verb. “The box of books is heavy” — the subject is box, singular. And normally makes a plural verb — “Ram and Sita are here.” With or, nor, either…or, neither…nor, the verb follows the nearer subject: “Neither the teacher nor the students are ready.” “Neither the students nor the teacher is ready.” Phrases with with, as well as do not change the first subject: “The teacher, with the students, is here.”

Indefinite pronouns everyone, somebody, nobody, each, every take a singular verb: “Everyone is present.” None of + plural noun may take a singular verb in careful style (“None of the books is cheap”) or a plural verb in easy style (“None of the books are cheap”). Collective nouns take singular when the group is one unit, plural when the members are in view — British English: “The team is strong.” “The team are wearing their colours.” Always singular: news, physics, measles. Always plural: scissors, trousers — unless a pair of scissors is is used. There agrees with the real noun: “There is a book.” “There are two books.”

(i) A letter is written by her. (ii) A letter has been written by her. (iii) Let the door be opened. (iv) He was given a pen. / A pen was given to him. Object of the active becomes subject of the passive; a form of be matches the tense; the past participle (V3) follows; by + old subject if the doer still matters. Old subject she becomes her after by. Two objects give two passives. Intransitive verbs have no passive.

(i) She said that she was tired. (ii) She told me that she would come. (iii) She asked if I was ready. (iv) She asked where I lived. (v) She told him to open the door. Said to + object becomes told. When the reporting verb is past, tenses step back one: present simple → past simple; will → would. Reported questions use statement order. Commands take told + to-infinitive. Inverted commas are not used in the indirect sentence.

(i) Compound: She is poor but she is honest. Complex: Although she is poor, she is honest. (ii) When she heard the news, she wept. (iii) Because he was ill, he stayed at home. (iv) Hearing the news, she wept. A simple sentence has one finite verb. A compound sentence joins two independent clauses with and, but, or, so. A complex sentence has a main clause and a subordinate clause. “Hearing the news, she wept” is simple because hearing is not finite.

(i) Negative: She is not ready. Interrogative: Is she ready? (ii) She does not write a letter. / Does she write a letter? (iii) She did not write a letter. / Did she write a letter? (iv) She cannot swim. / Can she swim? (v) She will not come. / Will she come? If an auxiliary is already there, not follows it and the auxiliary comes before the subject in a yes–no question. If there is no auxiliary, do / does / did is inserted and the main verb returns to the base form. Be as a main verb does not take do.

(i) Is a letter written by her? (ii) She told me not to wait. (iii) I met the teacher who teaches English. (iv) Where does she live? (v) She exclaimed that it was a very hot day. A yes–no question in the passive inverts the first auxiliary. A negative command becomes not to + verb. A relative who makes a complex sentence. A wh-question puts the wh-word first, then the auxiliary, then the subject. An exclamation becomes a that-clause.

(a) In July. (b) From eight in the morning to six in the evening. (c) Ms Rao issues a day-pass. (d) Most classes have ended; only exam groups remain. (e) The college reading room. (f) Gives / provides (a pass), not “problems.”

At noon the tree in the courtyard does not move. Its shade is like a room that the heat cannot enter. A sparrow comes down and then flies up into the air. The college bell will ring, but we are still under the tree. The books wait along the wall like doors. We leave, and the tree remains with them.

The words first name a way of living: honesty is a policy, a rule one keeps, not a mood one feels once. The meaning is that telling the truth and dealing fairly costs less, in the long run, than a lie that must be fed every day. A student who owns a missed page, and copies it the same evening, keeps the next week free. The same student who hides the gap meets the test with nine pages still unread. A librarian who records a late book as late, and a student who pays the fine, both keep the issue register usable. A city that prints true hours on a notice-board does not later spend a week answering angry questions. The saying is not “never be kind.” A hard truth still needs a civil voice. Honesty without courtesy can wound; courtesy without honesty can cheat. The last line returns to the given words: honesty remains the best policy because the small true word, spoken in time, saves the many false words that would have followed it.

To: principal@college.ac.in

Subject: Leave for two days, 22–23 September — BA Sem II

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am a student of B.A. Semester II, roll number 2145. I request leave for 22 and 23 September so that I may attend a family ceremony at home. I shall copy the missed notes from a classmate and shall be present on 24 September.

Yours faithfully,

Anil Sharma

At the librarian’s desk

Anil: Good afternoon, ma’am. I have left my identity card at home. May I still sit in the reading room?

Ms Rao: Good afternoon. I can issue a day-pass. Write your name, class and roll number in this register.

Anil: Here — Anil Sharma, B.A. Semester II, 2145. Where should I leave my bag?

Ms Rao: On the rack by the door. Bags are not allowed at the seats. The room is open until six.

Anil: Thank you. I will return the pass when I leave.

Ms Rao: Please do. Next.

How to borrow a book from the college reading room. 1. Leave the bag on the rack by the door. 2. Show the identity card at the desk, or take a day-pass from the librarian. 3. Write the title, the accession number and your class in the issue register. 4. Return the book on or before the stamped date; a late book is fined.

Technical writing explains a process so that a reader can use it: a clear purpose, precise words, an impersonal voice, numbered steps, and no slang. Scientific writing is technical writing tied to observation: Aim / Method / Result. A blog is a dated public journal; it may use I and a friendly voice. A report is a factual account for a person who was not there, with To / From / Date / Subject, findings, conclusion and recommendations. “The reading room opened in July” is a finding. “I felt peaceful there” is a blog line. Content writing is public information in readable blocks, warmer than a lab note and plainer than a story.

Phonetics is the scientific study of speech sounds: how they are made in the mouth, how they travel as sound-waves, and how they are heard. Subramaniam places it inside linguistics as the science of the spoken side of language, not of spelling. English spelling is a weak map of sound. Put and but look alike and do not rhyme; cough, though and through share letters but not a vowel. Phonetics has three branches. Articulatory phonetics studies how the body makes a sound. Acoustic phonetics studies the sound-wave: frequency and amplitude. Auditory phonetics studies how the ear and the brain receive the sound. Organs of speech, vowels and consonants belong to the articulatory branch. The organs of speech produce the sounds. Lungs supply air; the windpipe carries it to the larynx, which holds the vocal cords. Above the larynx, the pharynx is the throat-cavity. The oral cavity is the mouth; the nasal cavity is the nose-chamber. The tongue is the most movable organ. The alveolar ridge is the bumpy shelf behind the upper teeth — RP /t d n s z l/ are made there. The hard palate is the bony roof; the soft palate rises to shut the nose for oral sounds, or drops for nasals /m n ŋ/. The glottis is the opening between the cords; /h/ is glottal friction. English speech uses a pulmonic egressive air-stream: air is pushed out from the lungs. If the vocal cords vibrate, the sound is voiced; if they stay apart, it is voiceless.

Phonetic symbols are the letters of the International Phonetic Alphabet. One symbol stands for one sound. RP English has forty-four phonemes: twelve pure vowels, eight diphthongs and twenty-four consonants. A diphthong is one gliding vowel, counted as one sound: /eɪ/ in day, /aɪ/ in my, /əʊ/ in go. Slashes mark a phoneme: ship /ʃɪp/, sheep /ʃiːp/. A colon after a vowel marks length. Dental /θ ð/ keep thin apart from tin; /v/ and /w/ keep vest apart from west. Word stress is the extra force on one syllable of a word. A noun–verb pair such as ˈrecord / reˈcord shows both beats. Words in -tion, -sion and -ic take stress on the syllable just before the suffix. Intonation is the rise and fall of pitch across a phrase. Subramaniam uses four kinetic tones: falling for a finished statement and a wh-question; rising for a yes–no question; fall-rise for reservation; rise-fall for surprise. A dictionary prints pronunciation in these symbols, so the ear can be read on the page. Weak forms of to, and, of and the are the unstressed shapes of those words in connected speech. A one-syllable word still has stress as a beat; in a phrase it may become the nucleus and then carry a fall or a rise.

A sentence pattern is the order of slots in a clause. The five letters are S subject, V finite verb, O object, C complement and A adverbial. Seven patterns are SV, SVO, SVC, SVA, SVOO, SVOC and SVOA. SV: The child sleeps. SVO: She reads a book. SVC: She is a teacher. SVA: She is in Bikaner. SVOO: She gave him a pen. SVOC: They elected her captain. SVOA: She put the book on the table. If the word after the verb describes the same person as the subject, the pattern is SVC. If it names a different person or thing, the pattern is SVO. “She became a doctor” is SVC; “She visited a doctor” is SVO.

A determiner sits at the front of a noun phrase and marks the noun. Articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers and numerals belong here. A/an is indefinite; choose an before a vowel sound: an hour, a university. The is definite: the sun, the Ganga, second mention. Zero article marks a general sense: Water is useful. Books are costly. Countable singular nouns need a determiner: we write a book or the book, not a bare book as a whole noun phrase. Some stands in a positive sentence; any in a negative or a question.

Tense places the verb in time. Twelve forms arise from three times and four aspects. Present simple names a habit or a fact: She writes every day. Present perfect names a past act with a present result: She has written the letter. Past simple names a finished past, often with a time: She wrote yesterday. “She has written yesterday” is not standard English. Past perfect names the earlier of two past acts: She had written before he came. Future simple names a prediction or a promise: She will write tomorrow. State verbs such as know and believe are not normally continuous.

Modals add the speaker’s attitude: ability, permission, possibility, obligation, advice. The list is closed: can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, ought to, and the semi-modals need, dare, used to. A modal does not take -s: She can write. Can marks ability; must marks obligation or deduction; should marks advice; dare as a modal is chiefly negative: She dare not speak. Concord is the match of verb and subject. The finite verb follows the subject, not a nearer noun: The box of books is heavy. With neither…nor the verb follows the nearer subject. Everyone is present. None of the books is cheap in careful style; are cheap is also heard. The news is always singular. There agrees with the real noun: There are two books. Titles, sums and distances are singular: The Arabian Nights is a book. Ten kilometres is a long walk.

Transformation keeps the meaning and changes the form. Voice shows whether the subject does the action or receives it. In the active voice the subject is the doer: The student writes a letter. In the passive the subject is the receiver: A letter is written by the student. The formula is: object of the active becomes subject of the passive; a form of be matches the tense; the past participle follows; by plus the old subject stays if the doer still matters. Pronouns change with the new roles: she writes it becomes it is written by her. The old subject she becomes her after by; the old object it becomes the new subject. Present simple writes becomes is written; present perfect has written becomes has been written; past simple wrote becomes was written; future simple will write becomes will be written; modals keep the modal: can write becomes can be written. Two objects give two passives: She gave him a pen becomes He was given a pen, or A pen was given to him. Imperatives take Let: Open the door becomes Let the door be opened. Intransitive verbs have no passive. Clumsy perfect-continuous passives are rarely used.

Direct speech quotes the exact words inside inverted commas. Indirect speech reports those words as a clause. Said to plus object becomes told plus object. When the reporting verb is past, tenses step back: I am tired becomes she was tired; I will come becomes she would come. Questions take asked and if or a wh-word, with statement order: Are you ready becomes she asked if I was ready. Commands take to-infinitive: Open the door becomes she told him to open the door. No back-shift when the fact is always true: water boils at 100°C stays in the present. A simple sentence has one finite verb. A compound sentence joins two independent clauses with and, but, or, so. A complex sentence hangs a subordinate clause on a main clause with when, because, although or who. She is poor. She is honest. Compound: She is poor but she is honest. Complex: Although she is poor, she is honest. Hearing the news, she wept is simple; When she heard the news, she wept is complex. A declarative states; a negative denies; an interrogative asks. If there is an auxiliary, not follows it and the auxiliary comes before the subject: She is ready; She is not ready; Is she ready? If there is no auxiliary, do, does or did is inserted: She writes; She does not write; Does she write? Be as a main verb does not take do. Some becomes any in a negative. The negative of She wrote yesterday is She did not write yesterday, not She has not written. Transformation is a change of shape, never a change of fact.

The proverb first gives a picture from cloth. A small tear appears in a sleeve. One stitch, put in at once, closes the gap. If the tear is left, the cloth pulls, the hole grows, and nine stitches — or a whole patch — are needed later. The meaning is not “always hurry.” It is that a little labour at the right moment costs less than a late labour. Time here is the right time, not speed for its own sake. A stitch that is not timely is still only a stitch; a stitch that is timely saves nine.

A student who clears one tough page the evening it first resists it, keeps the next week free. The same student who says “I will do the whole unit the night before” meets nine pages at once and panics. The first evening looks like extra work. It is in fact the cheap work. A college that mends a leaking cooler when the first magazine is wet does not later bind a whole rack. The college reading room opened in July; last month a leaking cooler wet a row of magazines, and they were dried and bound again. One check of the cooler in the first week would have saved that second labour. A city that clears one blocked drain in June does not wait for the July flood to teach the same lesson at a higher price. A clerk who corrects one wrong date in a register on the day it is written does not later rebuild the whole file.

The saying has a limit. Haste that is not timely is not a stitch; it is a tear of another kind. A notice printed without a date, a cooler mended without a weekly check, a page copied without being read — each looks like a stitch and is not. Honesty that still needs law, and speed that still needs care, sit beside the proverb rather than against it. The last sentence returns to the given words. A stitch in time saves nine because the small true act, done when the gap is still small, spares the nine acts that a neglected gap would have demanded.

Report on the new college reading room

To: The Principal

From: Anil Sharma, B.A. Semester II

Date: 18 September

Subject: Visit to the reading room opened in July

Introduction. A visit was made on 17 September to the new reading room, as asked, to note how students use it, whether the stated hours are kept, and whether any repair is still needed after the first months of work.

Findings. The room holds eighty seats and two shelves of newspapers in Hindi and English. Hours are eight in the morning to six in the evening. Bags are kept on a rack by the door. The librarian, Ms Rao, issues a day-pass when an identity card is not produced. After four in the afternoon the room is quiet; most classes have ended and only exam groups remain. A leaking cooler wet a row of magazines last month; the copies have been dried and bound again. The issue register is in use. Students write the title, the accession number and the class before a book is taken. A late book is fined. Newspapers sit on two shelves near the entrance. The stair still carries an old “Staff” sign, so a few students look for the door twice. On 17 September the seats after four o’clock were mostly empty except for exam groups.

Conclusion. The room is in regular use and the rules are clear. The purpose of the visit was met: seats, hours, the day-pass and one repair were all seen and can be stated in numbers and dates.

Recommendations. The cooler should be checked once a week so that a second wet row is not needed. A second sign on the stair would help students who still look for the old Staff door. If the Principal wishes, a short notice of hours can be printed for the board beside the rack.