DLAB Deducing Rules from Audio 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: You hear: [MAko] = tree, [maKO] = forest, [MAlu] = stone, [maLU] = mountain. What rule governs stress placement in this invented language?
- Stress on first syllable = singular; stress on second syllable = collective/large form (Correct answer)
- Stress is always on first syllable
- Stress is random
- Stress on second syllable = singular
Correct answer: Stress on first syllable = singular; stress on second syllable = collective/large form
First-syllable stress = singular/basic; second-syllable stress = collective/large version of the same root.
The pattern shows that stress position changes the meaning of otherwise identical segments: [MAko] = tree (singular) vs [maKO] = forest (collective); [MAlu] = stone vs [maLU] = mountain (large form). First syllable stress = singular/basic meaning; second syllable stress = collective or enlarged meaning. This is a minimal pair stress-meaning association test.
Question 2: In a spoken invented language, you hear three sentences. Sentence A has a rising tone on the last word. Sentence B has a falling tone on the last word. Sentence C has a level tone. From context, A = question, B = statement, C = command. You hear a new sentence with a rising tone. What type is it?
- Question (Correct answer)
- Statement
- Command
- Exclamation
Correct answer: Question
Rising final tone = question, consistent with sentence A.
The intonation key is: rising final tone = question (A), falling = statement (B), level = command (C). The new sentence with rising tone matches the question pattern from sentence A. This is analogous to the DLAB's intonation-recognition component, where you must map acoustic patterns to grammatical functions.
Question 3: You hear words in invented language Frelvik: [braNAK], [breNAK], [briNAK]. The translations are: 'I run', 'You run', 'He runs'. The only difference is the first vowel. What vowel codes third person?
- i (Correct answer)
- a
- e
- o
Correct answer: i
[braNAK] = I, [breNAK] = you, [briNAK] = he; third person has vowel 'i'.
Comparing the three forms: [braNAK] = I run (1st person, vowel 'a'), [breNAK] = you run (2nd person, vowel 'e'), [briNAK] = he runs (3rd person, vowel 'i'). The person is encoded by the first vowel: a=1st, e=2nd, i=3rd. This is a phoneme-to-meaning mapping task based on minimal pair patterns.
Question 4: In a sound exercise, words ending in [s] mean 'one', words ending in [z] mean 'many'. You hear a new word ending in [z]. What does it refer to?
- Many objects (Correct answer)
- One object
- A question
- A verb
Correct answer: Many objects
Final [z] = many; the new word refers to many objects.
The rule established is: final [s] → singular ('one'), final [z] → plural ('many'). The distinction between [s] and [z] is voicing — [s] is voiceless, [z] is voiced. A new word ending in [z] therefore refers to many objects. This tests sound discrimination and application of a phoneme-to-meaning rule.
Question 5: You hear Zorathi words: [PREL-ok] = he speaks, [prel-OK] = he spoke. [BREN-ok] = he flies, [bren-OK] = he flew. You hear [TALO-ok]. What does it mean?
- He sings (present) (Correct answer)
- He sang (past)
- He will sing
- She sings
Correct answer: He sings (present)
Stress on first syllable = present tense; [TALO-ok] has first-syllable stress → he sings.
The stress pattern encodes tense: stress on the first syllable = present (e.g., [PREL-ok] = he speaks), stress on the final syllable = past (e.g., [prel-OK] = he spoke). [TALO-ok] has stress on the first syllable 'TALO', so it is present tense: 'he sings.' This requires both stress discrimination and pattern generalization.
Question 6: In spoken Drelvic, high pitch on a word = subject, low pitch = object. You hear a sentence: [HIGH: naku] [LOW: shor] [vel]. What is the sentence structure?
- Naku is the subject, shor is the object (Correct answer)
- Shor is the subject, naku is the object
- Naku and shor are both subjects
- Vel is the subject
Correct answer: Naku is the subject, shor is the object
High pitch = subject (naku), low pitch = object (shor).
Drelvic uses lexical tone to mark grammatical roles: high pitch = subject, low pitch = object. In the sentence, [HIGH: naku] is pitch-marked as subject, and [LOW: shor] is pitch-marked as object. [vel] is the verb (no pitch specification given for verbs). This tests your ability to use acoustic features (tone/pitch) to parse grammatical structure.
DLAB Deducing Rules from Audio 2
You hear: [MAko] = tree, [maKO] = forest, [MAlu] = stone, [maLU] = mountain.
What rule governs stress placement in this invented language?