Question

Many of the common English words have two or more forms of pronunciation, one strong form and one or more weak forms. This phenomenon is termed as ..................

• A. Gradation
• B. Transition
• C. Calibration
• D. Syncopation

Answer 1

Answer:

A. Gradation

• Transition: This generally refers to the process or period of changing from one state or condition to another. In phonetics, "transition" might refer to changes between sounds or parts of speech, but it doesn't specifically describe the strong and weak forms of words. This term is not related to the phenomenon of different pronunciations for the same word based on stress.

• Calibration: Calibration refers to adjusting or standardizing something, typically related to instruments or measurements. In linguistics, it's not used to describe the phenomenon of varying word pronunciations. So, this term is not relevant to the phenomenon of strong and weak forms in pronunciation.

• Syncopation: In music, syncopation refers to a rhythm where the expected beats are displaced or accents are shifted away from the regular beat. While syncopation is a term used in music, it doesn't apply to pronunciation variations in language. In linguistic terms, syncopation sometimes refers to the omission of sounds or syllables in spoken language, but it doesn't fit the context of strong and weak forms of words.