Intonation

Multiple-choice exercise

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  1. A rising tone followed by falling tone on something like "I think so" often indicates:
    1.   doubt
    2.   a positive response
    3.   a question
    4.   astonishment
  2. If I want to provide a simple positive response to a yes/no question, I'll usually use
    1.   a flat tone
    2.   a rising tone followed by a fall
    3.   a falling tone
    4.   a sharply rising tone
  3. The part in brackets in "The mastermind (as the police call him) has never been caught." will usually be:
    1.   spoken in a lower tone more quickly
    2.   spoken in a higher tone more quickly
    3.   spoken more slowly in a lower tone
    4.   spoken in a higher tone more slowly
  4. If I say "Good morning" with a rise on 'mor' and a fall on 'ning' I will usually sound:
    1.   friendly
    2.   unfriendly
    3.   bored
    4.   sarcastic
  5. Using intonation to signal the difference between a statement and a question is an example of:
    1.   attitudinal function
    2.   focusing
    3.   discourse function
    4.   grammatical function
  6. The fact that football chants often have specific intonation patterns is probably an example of:
    1.   indexical function
    2.   discourse function
    3.   psychological function
    4.   attitudinal function
  7. Which is correct?
    1.   Stress is signalled only by the speed with which one speaks.
    2.   Tonal languages distinguish lexical meaning by the pitch of the word.
    3.   If I want to stress a word I have to change the pitch.
    4.   Pitch refers to the how high a note is struck on a part of an utterance and is similar to stress.
  8. In general,
    1.   wh-questions show a fall towards the end of the sentence
    2.   wh-questions show a rise towards the end of the sentence
    3.   yes/no questions show a fall towards the end of the sentence
  9. The psychological function refers to:
    1.   how ideas are connected
    2.   how we perceive sense units
    3.   where the speaker wants to focus
    4.   the speaker's attitude
  10. If the utterance is "I saw a ↓fox in the garden last night.", the question was most likely:
    1.   What did you say you saw in the garden last night?
    2.   What did you do last night?
    3.   When did you last see a fox?
    4.   What happened last night?
  11. "It was Mrs Smith who arrived." is an example of:
    1.   new information stress
    2.   normal tonic stress
    3.   contrastive stress
    4.   emphatic stress
  12. "I played cricket." is an example of:
    1.   normal tonic stress
    2.   emphatic stress
    3.   new information stress
    4.   contrastive stress
  13. "It was exceptionally difficult." is an example of:
    1.   new information stress
    2.   emphatic stress
    3.   contrastive stress
    4.   normal tonic stress
  14. Tonic stress usually falls towards the end of the intonation unit.
    1.   True
    2.   False
  15. Punctuation marks are a more reliable and accurate way of clarifying meaning than spoken intonation patterns.
    1.   False
    2.   True