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CTET 7 Feb 2026 Paper 1 English, Question 107

Topic: Language acquisition

Q107

The term for the smallest meaningful unit of sound in a language is

  1. (1) semantics
  2. (2) phonemeCorrect answer
  3. (3) morpheme
  4. (4) syntax

Solution.

CBSE answer: (2)

Answer: (2) phoneme

  1. The stem asks about a unit of sound. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can change meaning, like /p/ and /b/ in "pat" and "bat".
  2. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning, such as "un-" or "book"; it is a unit of meaning, not of sound.
  3. Semantics and syntax are branches of study, not units.

Trap: (3) The word "meaningful" pulls towards morpheme, but the stem asks for a unit of sound.