DLAB Trivia 2

Question 1

What is the primary difference between a morpheme and a phoneme?

Accepted Answer

A morpheme carries meaning; a phoneme is a unit of sound without inherent meaning.

Answer

Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning; phonemes are the smallest units of sound.

Question 2

The term 'agglutinative language' describes a language where words are formed by:

Accepted Answer

Stringing together multiple morphemes, each with a distinct meaning

Answer

Agglutinative languages build words by attaching morphemes sequentially, each carrying one meaning.

Question 3

In phonetics, what is the difference between 'voiced' and 'voiceless' sounds?

Accepted Answer

Voiced sounds involve vibration of the vocal cords; voiceless sounds do not.

Answer

Voicing refers to whether the vocal cords vibrate: voiced (/b/, /d/, /g/) vs voiceless (/p/, /t/, /k/).

Question 4

What is a 'minimal pair' in linguistics?

Accepted Answer

Two words that differ in only one phoneme and have different meanings

Answer

Minimal pairs differ in exactly one phoneme: 'bat' vs 'cat' (b/c), 'ship' vs 'sheep' (short i/long e).

Question 5

Which linguistic concept describes the phenomenon where the same word has different stress patterns depending on whether it functions as a noun or a verb?

Accepted Answer

Noun-verb stress shift (heteronym pair)

Answer

Noun-verb stress shift: nouns stress the first syllable, verbs stress the second (e.g., PER-mit vs per-MIT).

DLAB - Defense Language Aptitude Battery Practice Test

DLAB - Defense Language Aptitude Battery Practice Test

DLAB Trivia 2