Question

Sejnowski rejected the usual top-down approach to reproducing human speech. He threw out the fat dictionaries of pronunciation and programs brimming with the rules of phonetics and the tedious list of exceptions to all the previous rules, which had no rhyme or reason. Instead, he replaced all this with a surprisingly simple neural circuit. Miraculously, NETalk learns to speak English the way we do, from trial and error alone. No programs, no dictionaries, no rules, no rules for exceptions – just the ability to learn from its mistakes.

–Visions, Michio Kaku


Check all of the words that give clues to the meaning of phonetics.


reproducing


pronunciation


exceptions


dictionaries

Answer 1

B). Pronunciations.

D). Dictionaries.

Step-by-step explanation:

Context clues are demonstrated as the hints or clues that are provided by the author to signal the meaning of an unfamiliar word. It allows the readers to understand the meaning of such words more clearly and text as a whole comprehensively.

In the given excerpt, the words 'pronunciations' and 'dictionaries' function as the clues for explaining the meaning of the word 'phonetics.' These words signal the reader that 'phonetics' is associated with the 'physical characteristics of human speech i.e. 'dictionaries'(words used in speech) and the 'pronunciation'(how they are uttered or sound) that allows the listener to understand the perceive the intended meaning. Thus, options B and D are the correct answers.