The White family’s initial response to Sergeant Major Morris’s claims about the monkey’s paw is mainly --

Suffix 'ic' can be added to create a word meaning "having characteristics of sound"

Option C

Explanation:

Suffixes are words that are usually added at the end of the base words to change its meaning or its function.

The root word phon means loudness of sounds. Now if we add the suffix ‘ic’ at the end of the root word phon, then it will become phonic. Phonic means relating to the speech sounds, which has a characteristic of sound.

If we add other given suffixes at the end of the root phon then we will get words such as phonal, phonel, phonly. Apart from phonal the rest of the words don’t really makes sense.