The definition of the word phoneme

This article is about the speech unit. For the JavaME library, see phoneME. For the collection of phenotypes, see phenome.

In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.

For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west of England,^[1] the sound patterns (sin) and (sing) are two separate words that are distinguished by the substitution of one phoneme, /n/, for another phoneme, /ŋ/. Two words like this that differ in meaning through the contrast of a single phoneme form a minimal pair. If, in another language, any two sequences differing only by pronunciation of the final sounds [n] or [ŋ] are perceived as being the same in meaning, then these two sounds are interpreted as phonetic variants of a single phoneme in that language.

Phonemes that are established by the use of minimal pairs, such as tap vs tab or pat vs bat, are written between slashes: /p/, /b/. To show pronunciation, linguists use square brackets: [pʰ] (indicating an aspirated p in pat).

There are differing views as to exactly what phonemes are and how a given language should be analyzed in phonemic (or phonematic) terms. However, a phoneme is generally regarded as an abstraction of a set (or equivalence class) of speech sounds (phones) that are perceived as equivalent to each other in a given language. For example, the English k sounds in the words kill and skill are not identical (as described below), but they are distributional variants of a single phoneme /k/. Speech sounds that differ but do not create a meaningful change in the word are known as allophones of the same phoneme. Allophonic variation may be conditioned, in which case a certain phoneme is realized as a certain allophone in particular phonological environments, or it may otherwise be free, and may vary by speaker or by dialect. Therefore, phonemes are often considered to constitute an abstract underlying representation for segments of words, while speech sounds make up the corresponding phonetic realization, or the surface form.

Notation[edit]

Phonemes are conventionally placed between slashes in transcription, whereas speech sounds (phones) are placed between square brackets. Thus, /pʊʃ/ represents a sequence of three phonemes, /p/, /ʊ/, /ʃ/ (the word push in Standard English), and [pʰʊʃ] represents the phonetic sequence of sounds [pʰ] (aspirated p), [ʊ], [ʃ] (the usual pronunciation of push). This should not be confused with the similar convention of the use of angle brackets to enclose the units of orthography, graphemes. For example, ⟨f⟩ represents the written letter (grapheme) f.

The symbols used for particular phonemes are often taken from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the same set of symbols most commonly used for phones. (For computer-typing purposes, systems such as X-SAMPA exist to represent IPA symbols using only ASCII characters.) However, descriptions of particular languages may use different conventional symbols to represent the phonemes of those languages. For languages whose writing systems employ the phonemic principle, ordinary letters may be used to denote phonemes, although this approach is often hampered by the complexity of the relationship between orthography and pronunciation (see § Correspondence between letters and phonemes below).

Assignment of speech sounds to phonemes[edit]

A phoneme is a sound or a group of different sounds perceived to have the same function by speakers of the language or dialect in question. An example is the English phoneme /k/, which occurs in words such as cat, kit, scat, skit. Although most native speakers do not notice this, in most English dialects, the «c/k» sounds in these words are not identical: in kit (help·info) [kʰɪt], the sound is aspirated, but in skill (help·info) [skɪl], it is unaspirated. The words, therefore, contain different speech sounds, or phones, transcribed [kʰ] for the aspirated form and [k] for the unaspirated one. These different sounds are nonetheless considered to belong to the same phoneme, because if a speaker used one instead of the other, the meaning of the word would not change: using the aspirated form [kʰ] in skill might sound odd, but the word would still be recognized. By contrast, some other sounds would cause a change in meaning if substituted: for example, substitution of the sound [t] would produce the different word still, and that sound must therefore be considered to represent a different phoneme (the phoneme /t/).

The above shows that in English, [k] and [kʰ] are allophones of a single phoneme /k/. In some languages, however, [kʰ] and [k] are perceived by native speakers as different sounds, and substituting one for the other can change the meaning of a word. In those languages, therefore, the two sounds represent different phonemes. For example, in Icelandic, [kʰ] is the first sound of kátur, meaning «cheerful», but [k] is the first sound of gátur, meaning «riddles». Icelandic, therefore, has two separate phonemes /kʰ/ and /k/.

Minimal pairs[edit]

A pair of words like kátur and gátur (above) that differ only in one phone is called a minimal pair for the two alternative phones in question (in this case, [kʰ] and [k]). The existence of minimal pairs is a common test to decide whether two phones represent different phonemes or are allophones of the same phoneme.

To take another example, the minimal pair tip and dip illustrates that in English, [t] and [d] belong to separate phonemes, /t/ and /d/; since both words have different meanings, English-speakers must be conscious of the distinction between the two sounds.

Signed languages, such as American Sign Language (ASL), also have minimal pairs, differing only in (exactly) one of the signs’ parameters: handshape, movement, location, palm orientation, and nonmanual signal or marker. A minimal pair may exist in the signed language if the basic sign stays the same, but one of the parameters changes.^[2]

However, the absence of minimal pairs for a given pair of phones does not always mean that they belong to the same phoneme: they may be so dissimilar phonetically that it is unlikely for speakers to perceive them as the same sound. For example, English has no minimal pair for the sounds [h] (as in hat) and [ŋ] (as in bang), and the fact that they can be shown to be in complementary distribution could be used to argue for their being allophones of the same phoneme. However, they are so dissimilar phonetically that they are considered separate phonemes.^[3]

Phonologists have sometimes had recourse to «near minimal pairs» to show that speakers of the language perceive two sounds as significantly different even if no exact minimal pair exists in the lexicon. It is virtually impossible to find a minimal pair to distinguish English from , yet it seems uncontroversial to claim that the two consonants are distinct phonemes. The two words ‘pressure’ and ‘pleasure’ can serve as a near minimal pair.^[4]

Suprasegmental phonemes[edit]

Besides segmental phonemes such as vowels and consonants, there are also suprasegmental features of pronunciation (such as tone and stress, syllable boundaries and other forms of juncture, nasalization and vowel harmony), which, in many languages, change the meaning of words and so are phonemic.

Phonemic stress is encountered in languages such as English. For example, there are two words spelled invite, one is a verb and is stressed on the second syllable, the other is a noun and stressed on the first syllable (without changing any of the individual sounds). The position of the stress distinguishes the words and so a full phonemic specification would include indication of the position of the stress: /ɪnˈvaɪt/ for the verb, /ˈɪnvaɪt/ for the noun. In other languages, such as French, word stress cannot have this function (its position is generally predictable) and so it is not phonemic (and therefore not usually indicated in dictionaries).

Phonemic tones are found in languages such as Mandarin Chinese in which a given syllable can have five different tonal pronunciations:

Minimal set for phonemic tone in Mandarin Chinese

Tone number	1	2	3	4	5
Hanzi	媽	麻	馬	罵	嗎
Pinyin	mā	má	mǎ	mà	ma
IPA	[má]	[mǎ]	[mà][a]	[mâ]	[ma]
Gloss	mother	hemp	horse	scold	question particle

The tone «phonemes» in such languages are sometimes called tonemes. Languages such as English do not have phonemic tone, but they use intonation for functions such as emphasis and attitude.

Distribution of allophones[edit]

When a phoneme has more than one allophone, the one actually heard at a given occurrence of that phoneme may be dependent on the phonetic environment (surrounding sounds). Allophones that normally cannot appear in the same environment are said to be in complementary distribution. In other cases, the choice of allophone may be dependent on the individual speaker or other unpredictable factors. Such allophones are said to be in free variation, but allophones are still selected in a specific phonetic context, not the other way around.

Background and related ideas[edit]

The term phonème (from Ancient Greek: φώνημα, romanized: phōnēma, «sound made, utterance, thing spoken, speech, language»^[5]) was reportedly first used by A. Dufriche-Desgenettes in 1873, but it referred only to a speech sound. The term phoneme as an abstraction was developed by the Polish linguist Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and his student Mikołaj Kruszewski during 1875–1895.^[6] The term used by these two was fonema, the basic unit of what they called psychophonetics. Daniel Jones became the first linguist in the western world to use the term phoneme in its current sense, employing the word in his article «The phonetic structure of the Sechuana Language».^[7] The concept of the phoneme was then elaborated in the works of Nikolai Trubetzkoy and others of the Prague School (during the years 1926–1935), and in those of structuralists like Ferdinand de Saussure, Edward Sapir, and Leonard Bloomfield. Some structuralists (though not Sapir) rejected the idea of a cognitive or psycholinguistic function for the phoneme.^[8][9]

Later, it was used and redefined in generative linguistics, most famously by Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle,^[10] and remains central to many accounts of the development of modern phonology. As a theoretical concept or model, though, it has been supplemented and even replaced by others.^[11]

Some linguists (such as Roman Jakobson and Morris Halle) proposed that phonemes may be further decomposable into features, such features being the true minimal constituents of language.^[12] Features overlap each other in time, as do suprasegmental phonemes in oral language and many phonemes in sign languages. Features could be characterized in different ways: Jakobson and colleagues defined them in acoustic terms,^[13] Chomsky and Halle used a predominantly articulatory basis, though retaining some acoustic features, while Ladefoged’s system^[14] is a purely articulatory system apart from the use of the acoustic term ‘sibilant’.

In the description of some languages, the term chroneme has been used to indicate contrastive length or duration of phonemes. In languages in which tones are phonemic, the tone phonemes may be called tonemes. Though not all scholars working on such languages use these terms, they are by no means obsolete.

By analogy with the phoneme, linguists have proposed other sorts of underlying objects, giving them names with the suffix -eme, such as morpheme and grapheme. These are sometimes called emic units. The latter term was first used by Kenneth Pike, who also generalized the concepts of emic and etic description (from phonemic and phonetic respectively) to applications outside linguistics.^[15]

Restrictions on occurrence[edit]

Languages do not generally allow words or syllables to be built of any arbitrary sequences of phonemes. There are phonotactic restrictions on which sequences of phonemes are possible and in which environments certain phonemes can occur. Phonemes that are significantly limited by such restrictions may be called restricted phonemes.

In English, examples of such restrictions include the following:

• /ŋ/, as in sing, occurs only at the end of a syllable, never at the beginning (in many other languages, such as Māori, Swahili, Tagalog, and Thai, /ŋ/ can appear word-initially).
• /h/ occurs only at the beginning of a syllable, never at the end (a few languages, such as Arabic and Romanian, allow /h/ syllable-finally).
• In non-rhotic dialects, /ɹ/ can occur immediately only before a vowel, never before a consonant.
• /w/ and /j/ occur only before a vowel, never at the end of a syllable (except in interpretations in which a word like boy is analyzed as /bɔj/).

Some phonotactic restrictions can alternatively be analyzed as cases of neutralization. See Neutralization and archiphonemes below, particularly the example of the occurrence of the three English nasals before stops.

Biuniqueness[edit]

Biuniqueness is a requirement of classic structuralist phonemics. It means that a given phone, wherever it occurs, must unambiguously be assigned to one and only one phoneme. In other words, the mapping between phones and phonemes is required to be many-to-one rather than many-to-many. The notion of biuniqueness was controversial among some pre-generative linguists and was prominently challenged by Morris Halle and Noam Chomsky in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

An example of the problems arising from the biuniqueness requirement is provided by the phenomenon of flapping in North American English. This may cause either /t/ or /d/ (in the appropriate environments) to be realized with the phone [ɾ] (an alveolar flap). For example, the same flap sound may be heard in the words hitting and bidding, although it is intended to realize the phoneme /t/ in the first word and /d/ in the second. This appears to contradict biuniqueness.

For further discussion of such cases, see the next section.

Neutralization and archiphonemes[edit]

Phonemes that are contrastive in certain environments may not be contrastive in all environments. In the environments where they do not contrast, the contrast is said to be neutralized. In these positions it may become less clear which phoneme a given phone represents. Absolute neutralization is a phenomenon in which a segment of the underlying representation is not realized in any of its phonetic representations (surface forms). The term was introduced by Paul Kiparsky (1968), and contrasts with contextual neutralization where some phonemes are not contrastive in certain environments.^[16] Some phonologists prefer not to specify a unique phoneme in such cases, since to do so would mean providing redundant or even arbitrary information – instead they use the technique of underspecification. An archiphoneme is an object sometimes used to represent an underspecified phoneme.

An example of neutralization is provided by the Russian vowels /a/ and /o/. These phonemes are contrasting in stressed syllables, but in unstressed syllables the contrast is lost, since both are reduced to the same sound, usually [ə] (for details, see vowel reduction in Russian). In order to assign such an instance of [ə] to one of the phonemes /a/ and /o/, it is necessary to consider morphological factors (such as which of the vowels occurs in other forms of the words, or which inflectional pattern is followed). In some cases even this may not provide an unambiguous answer. A description using the approach of underspecification would not attempt to assign [ə] to a specific phoneme in some or all of these cases, although it might be assigned to an archiphoneme, written something like //A//, which reflects the two neutralized phonemes in this position, or {a}, reflecting its unmerged values.^[b]

A somewhat different example is found in English, with the three nasal phonemes /m, n, ŋ/. In word-final position these all contrast, as shown by the minimal triplet sum /sʌm/, sun /sʌn/, sung /sʌŋ/. However, before a stop such as /p, t, k/ (provided there is no morpheme boundary between them), only one of the nasals is possible in any given position: /m/ before /p/, /n/ before /t/ or /d/, and /ŋ/ before /k/, as in limp, lint, link (/lɪmp/, /lɪnt/, /lɪŋk/). The nasals are therefore not contrastive in these environments, and according to some theorists this makes it inappropriate to assign the nasal phones heard here to any one of the phonemes (even though, in this case, the phonetic evidence is unambiguous). Instead they may analyze these phones as belonging to a single archiphoneme, written something like //N//, and state the underlying representations of limp, lint, link to be //lɪNp//, //lɪNt//, //lɪNk//.

This latter type of analysis is often associated with Nikolai Trubetzkoy of the Prague school. Archiphonemes are often notated with a capital letter within double virgules or pipes, as with the examples //A// and //N// given above. Other ways the second of these has been notated include |m-n-ŋ|, {m, n, ŋ} and //n*//.

Another example from English, but this time involving complete phonetic convergence as in the Russian example, is the flapping of /t/ and /d/ in some American English (described above under Biuniqueness). Here the words betting and bedding might both be pronounced [ˈbɛɾɪŋ]. Under the generative grammar theory of linguistics, if a speaker applies such flapping consistently, morphological evidence (the pronunciation of the related forms bet and bed, for example) would reveal which phoneme the flap represents, once it is known which morpheme is being used.^[17] However, other theorists would prefer not to make such a determination, and simply assign the flap in both cases to a single archiphoneme, written (for example) //D//.

Further mergers in English are plosives after /s/, where /p, t, k/ conflate with /b, d, ɡ/, as suggested by the alternative spellings sketti and sghetti. That is, there is no particular reason to transcribe spin as /ˈspɪn/ rather than as /ˈsbɪn/, other than its historical development, and it might be less ambiguously transcribed //ˈsBɪn//.

Morphophonemes[edit]

A morphophoneme is a theoretical unit at a deeper level of abstraction than traditional phonemes, and is taken to be a unit from which morphemes are built up. A morphophoneme within a morpheme can be expressed in different ways in different allomorphs of that morpheme (according to morphophonological rules). For example, the English plural morpheme -s appearing in words such as cats and dogs can be considered to be a single morphophoneme, which might be transcribed (for example) //z// or |z|, and which is realized phonemically as /s/ after most voiceless consonants (as in cats) and as /z/ in other cases (as in dogs).

Numbers of phonemes in different languages[edit]

All known languages use only a small subset of the many possible sounds that the human speech organs can produce, and, because of allophony, the number of distinct phonemes will generally be smaller than the number of identifiably different sounds. Different languages vary considerably in the number of phonemes they have in their systems (although apparent variation may sometimes result from the different approaches taken by the linguists doing the analysis). The total phonemic inventory in languages varies from as few as 9–11 in Pirahã and 11 in Rotokas to as many as 141 in !Xũ.^[18][19][20]

The number of phonemically distinct vowels can be as low as two, as in Ubykh and Arrernte. At the other extreme, the Bantu language Ngwe has 14 vowel qualities, 12 of which may occur long or short, making 26 oral vowels, plus six nasalized vowels, long and short, making a total of 38 vowels; while !Xóõ achieves 31 pure vowels, not counting its additional variation by vowel length, by varying the phonation. As regards consonant phonemes, Puinave and the Papuan language Tauade each have just seven, and Rotokas has only six. !Xóõ, on the other hand, has somewhere around 77, and Ubykh 81. The English language uses a rather large set of 13 to 21 vowel phonemes, including diphthongs, although its 22 to 26 consonants are close to average. Across all languages, the average number of consonant phonemes per language is about 22, while the average number of vowel phonemes is about 8.^[21]

Some languages, such as French, have no phonemic tone or stress, while Cantonese and several of the Kam–Sui languages have six to nine tones (depending on how they’re counted), and the Kam-Sui Dong language has nine to 15 tones by the same measure. One of the Kru languages, Wobé, has been claimed to have 14,^[22] though this is disputed.^[23]

The most common vowel system consists of the five vowels /i/, /e/, /a/, /o/, /u/. The most common consonants are /p/, /t/, /k/, /m/, /n/.^[24] Relatively few languages lack any of these consonants, although it does happen: for example, Arabic lacks /p/, standard Hawaiian lacks /t/, Mohawk and Tlingit lack /p/ and /m/, Hupa lacks both /p/ and a simple /k/, colloquial Samoan lacks /t/ and /n/, while Rotokas and Quileute lack /m/ and /n/.

The non-uniqueness of phonemic solutions[edit]

During the development of phoneme theory in the mid-20th century phonologists were concerned not only with the procedures and principles involved in producing a phonemic analysis of the sounds of a given language, but also with the reality or uniqueness of the phonemic solution. These were central concerns of phonology. Some writers took the position expressed by Kenneth Pike: «There is only one accurate phonemic analysis for a given set of data»,^[25] while others believed that different analyses, equally valid, could be made for the same data. Yuen Ren Chao (1934), in his article «The non-uniqueness of phonemic solutions of phonetic systems»^[26] stated «given the sounds of a language, there are usually more than one possible way of reducing them to a set of phonemes, and these different systems or solutions are not simply correct or incorrect, but may be regarded only as being good or bad for various purposes». The linguist F. W. Householder referred to this argument within linguistics as «God’s Truth» (i.e. the stance that a given language has an intrinsic structure to be discovered) vs. «hocus-pocus» (i.e. the stance that any proposed, coherent structure is as good as any other).^[27]

Different analyses of the English vowel system may be used to illustrate this. The article English phonology states that «English has a particularly large number of vowel phonemes» and that «there are 20 vowel phonemes in Received Pronunciation, 14–16 in General American and 20–21 in Australian English». Although these figures are often quoted as fact, they actually reflect just one of many possible analyses, and later in the English Phonology article an alternative analysis is suggested in which some diphthongs and long vowels may be interpreted as comprising a short vowel linked to either /j/ or /w/. The fullest exposition of this approach is found in Trager and Smith (1951), where all long vowels and diphthongs («complex nuclei») are made up of a short vowel combined with either /j/, /w/ or /h/ (plus /r/ for rhotic accents), each comprising two phonemes.^[28] The transcription for the vowel normally transcribed /aɪ/ would instead be /aj/, /aʊ/ would be /aw/ and /ɑː/ would be /ah/, or /ar/ in a rhotic accent if there is an ⟨r⟩ in the spelling. It is also possible to treat English long vowels and diphthongs as combinations of two vowel phonemes, with long vowels treated as a sequence of two short vowels, so that ‘palm’ would be represented as /paam/. English can thus be said to have around seven vowel phonemes, or even six if schwa were treated as an allophone of /ʌ/ or of other short vowels.

In the same period there was disagreement about the correct basis for a phonemic analysis. The structuralist position was that the analysis should be made purely on the basis of the sound elements and their distribution, with no reference to extraneous factors such as grammar, morphology or the intuitions of the native speaker; this position is strongly associated with Leonard Bloomfield.^[29] Zellig Harris claimed that it is possible to discover the phonemes of a language purely by examining the distribution of phonetic segments.^[30] Referring to mentalistic definitions of the phoneme, Twaddell (1935) stated «Such a definition is invalid because (1) we have no right to guess about the linguistic workings of an inaccessible ‘mind’, and (2) we can secure no advantage from such guesses. The linguistic processes of the ‘mind’ as such are quite simply unobservable; and introspection about linguistic processes is notoriously a fire in a wooden stove.»^[8] This approach was opposed to that of Edward Sapir, who gave an important role to native speakers’ intuitions about where a particular sound or group of sounds fitted into a pattern. Using English [ŋ] as an example, Sapir argued that, despite the superficial appearance that this sound belongs to a group of three nasal consonant phonemes (/m/, /n/ and /ŋ/), native speakers feel that the velar nasal is really the sequence [ŋɡ]/.^[31] The theory of generative phonology which emerged in the 1960s explicitly rejected the Structuralist approach to phonology and favoured the mentalistic or cognitive view of Sapir.^[32][10]

These topics are discussed further in English phonology#Controversial issues.

Correspondence between letters and phonemes[edit]

Phonemes are considered to be the basis for alphabetic writing systems. In such systems the written symbols (graphemes) represent, in principle, the phonemes of the language being written. This is most obviously the case when the alphabet was invented with a particular language in mind; for example, the Latin alphabet was devised for Classical Latin, and therefore the Latin of that period enjoyed a near one-to-one correspondence between phonemes and graphemes in most cases, though the devisers of the alphabet chose not to represent the phonemic effect of vowel length. However, because changes in the spoken language are often not accompanied by changes in the established orthography (as well as other reasons, including dialect differences, the effects of morphophonology on orthography, and the use of foreign spellings for some loanwords), the correspondence between spelling and pronunciation in a given language may be highly distorted; this is the case with English, for example.

The correspondence between symbols and phonemes in alphabetic writing systems is not necessarily a one-to-one correspondence. A phoneme might be represented by a combination of two or more letters (digraph, trigraph, etc.), like ⟨sh⟩ in English or ⟨sch⟩ in German (both representing phonemes /ʃ/). Also a single letter may represent two phonemes, as in English ⟨x⟩ representing /gz/ or /ks/. There may also exist spelling/pronunciation rules (such as those for the pronunciation of ⟨c⟩ in Italian) that further complicate the correspondence of letters to phonemes, although they need not affect the ability to predict the pronunciation from the spelling and vice versa, provided the rules are known.

In sign languages[edit]

Sign language phonemes are bundles of articulation features. Stokoe was the first scholar to describe the phonemic system of ASL. He identified the bundles tab (elements of location, from Latin tabula), dez (the handshape, from designator), sig (the motion, from signation). Some researchers also discern ori (orientation), facial expression or mouthing. Just as with spoken languages, when features are combined, they create phonemes. As in spoken languages, sign languages have minimal pairs which differ in only one phoneme. For instance, the ASL signs for father and mother differ minimally with respect to location while handshape and movement are identical; location is thus contrastive.

Stokoe’s terminology and notation system are no longer used by researchers to describe the phonemes of sign languages; William Stokoe’s research, while still considered seminal, has been found not to characterize American Sign Language or other sign languages sufficiently.^[33] For instance, non-manual features are not included in Stokoe’s classification. More sophisticated models of sign language phonology have since been proposed by Brentari,^[34] Sandler,^[35] and Van der Kooij.^[36]

Chereme[edit]

Cherology and chereme (from Ancient Greek: χείρ «hand») are synonyms of phonology and phoneme previously used in the study of sign languages. A chereme, as the basic unit of signed communication, is functionally and psychologically equivalent to the phonemes of oral languages, and has been replaced by that term in the academic literature. Cherology, as the study of cheremes in language, is thus equivalent to phonology. The terms are not in use anymore. Instead, the terms phonology and phoneme (or distinctive feature) are used to stress the linguistic similarities between signed and spoken languages.^[37]

The terms were coined in 1960 by William Stokoe^[38] at Gallaudet University to describe sign languages as true and full languages. Once a controversial idea, the position is now universally accepted in linguistics. Stokoe’s terminology, however, has been largely abandoned.^[39]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Outline

1.
Definition of the phoneme and its functions

2.
Types of allophones and main features of the phoneme

3.
Methods of the phonemic analysis

4.
Main phonological schools

1. Definition of the phoneme and its functions.

To
know how sounds are produced is not enough to describe and classify
them as language units. When we talk about the sounds of language,
the term «sound» can be interpreted in two different ways.
First, we can say that [t] and [d], for example, are two different
sounds in English: e.g. ten-den, seat-seed. But on the other hand, we
know that [t] in let us and [t] in let them are not the same. In both
examples the sounds differ in one articulatory feature only. In the
second case the difference between the sounds has functionally no
significance. It is clear that the sense of «sound» in
these two cases is different. To avoid this ambiguity, linguists use
two separate terms: phoneme and allophone.

The
phoneme is a minimal abstract linguistic unit realized in speech in
the form of speech sounds opposable to other phonemes of the same
language to distinguish the meaning of morphemes and words.

Let
us consider the phoneme from the point of view of its aspects.

Firstly,
the phoneme is a functional unit. In phonetics function is usually
understood as a role of the various units of the phonetic system in
distinguishing one morpheme from another, one word from another or
one utterance from another. The opposition of phonemes in the same
phonetic environment differentiates the meaning of morphemes and
words: e.g. bath-path, light-like. Sometimes the opposition of
phonemes serves to distinguish the meaning of the whole phrases: He
was heard
badly
— He was hurt badly. Thus we may say that the phoneme can fulfill the
distinctive function.

Secondly,
the phoneme is material, real and objective. That means it is
realized in speech in the form of speech sounds, its allophones. The
phonemes constitute the material form of morphemes, so this function
may be called constitutive function.

Thirdly,
the phoneme performs the recognitive function, because the use of the
right allophones and other phonetic units facilitates normal
recognition. We may add that the phoneme is a material and objective
unit as well as an abstract and generalized one at the same time.

2. Types of allophones and the main features of the phoneme

Let
us consider the English phoneme [d]. It is occlusive, forelingual,
apical, alveolar, lenis consonant. This is how it sounds in isolation
or in such words as door, darn, down, etc, when it retains its
typical articulatory characteristics. In this case the consonant [d]
is called principal allophone. The allophones which do not undergo
any distinguishable changes in speech are called principal.

Allophones
that occur under influence of the neighboring sounds in different
phonetic situations are called subsidiary,
e.g.:

a.
deal, did — it is slightly palatalized before front vowels

b.
bad pain, bedtime — it is pronounced without any plosion

с.
sudden, admit — it is pronounced with nasal plosion before [n], [m]

d.
dry — it becomes post-alveolar followed by [r].

If
we consider the production of the allophones of the phoneme above we
will find out that they possess three articulatory features in common
— all of them are forelingual lenis stops. Consequently, though
allophones of the same phoneme possess similar articulatory features
they may frequently show considerable phonetic differences.

Native
speakers do not observe the difference between the allophones of the
same phoneme. At the same time they realize that allophones of each
phoneme possess a bundle of distinctive features that makes this
phoneme functionally
different
from all other phonemes of the language. This functionally relevant
bundle is called the invariant of the phoneme. All the allophones of
the phoneme [d] instance, are occlusive, forelingual, lenis. If
occlusive articulation is changed for constrictive one [d] will be
replaced by [z]: e. g. breed — breeze, deal — zeal, the
articulatory features which form the invariant of the phoneme are
called distinctive or relevant.

To
extract relevant features of the phoneme we have to oppose it to some
other phoneme in the phonetic context.

If
the opposed sounds differ in one articulatory feature and this
difference brings about changes in the meaning this feature is called
relevant: for example, port — court, [p] and [k] are consonants,
occlusive, fortis; the only difference being that [p] is labial and
[t] is lingual.

The
articulatory features which do not serve to distinguish meaning are
called non-distinctive, irrelevant or redundant. For example, it is
impossible to oppose an aspirated [p^h]
to a non-aspirated one in the same phonetic context to distinguish
meaning.

We
know that anyone who studies a foreign language makes mistakes in the
articulation of sounds. L.V. Shcherba classifies the pronunciation
errors as phonological and phonetic. If an allophone is replaced by
an allophone of a different phoneme the mistake is called
phonological. If an allophone of the phoneme is replaced by another
allophone of the same phoneme the mistake is called phonetic.

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Definition of Phoneme

A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a word that makes a difference in its pronunciation, as well as its meaning, from another word. For instance, the /s/ in ‘soar’ distinguishes it from /r/ in ‘roar’, as it becomes different from ‘soar’ in pronunciation as well as meaning.

There are a total of 44 phonemes in the English language, which include consonants, short vowels, long vowels, diphthongs, and triphthongs. Phonemes have distinct functions in the English language, such as the /b/, /t/, and /d/ consonant sounds that are missing in some languages. The written representation of a sound is placed in slashes, as in this example where /b/ is placed in slashes on both sides.

Examples of Phoneme in Literature

Example #1: To Kill a Mockingbird (by Harper Lee)

“When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn’t have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.”

A few of the letters in this passage have been underlined for understanding. The first three underlined examples of phonemes are the sounds /wh/ /th/ and /j/ respectively.

Example #2: 1984 (by George Orwell)

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.”

The underlined letters are sounds of /i/ /b/ /d/ /s/ /ie/ /w/ /s/ and /v/ respectively. However, two phonemes have used aspirated diphthong sounds /th/ in “Smith” and /th/ in “though.”

Example #3: Great Expectations (by Charles Dickens)

“All this time, I was getting on towards the river; but however fast I went, I couldn’t warm my feet, to which the damp cold seemed riveted, as the iron was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet. I knew my way to the Battery, pretty straight, for I had been down there on a Sunday with Joe, and Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that when I was ‘prentice to him, regularly bound, we would have such Larks there!”

In this example, different phonemes are highlighted as /g/ i/ /b/ /w/ /m/ /ie/ /d/ /s/ /f/ /h/ /j/ and /l/.

Example #4: Ode to Nightingale (by John Keats)

“My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,—
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.”

In this stanza, Keats has used mostly diphthongs, including sounds like /ow/ /ou/ /ia/ /oo/ and /sh/. All of them are giving distinct sounds of their respective phonemes.

Example #5: Tyger Tyger (by Charles Dickens)

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

This example also has used short vowels, long vowels, consonants and diphthongs. The first word contains six phonemes or sounds as /b/ /u/ /r/ /n/ /i/ /n/ /g/. The last word “fearful” contains six sounds /f/ /ea/ /r/ /f/ /u/ and /l/, where the second sound is a diphthong.

Function of Phoneme

Phonemes carry distinct sounds that differentiate one word from another. Counting them could be challenging, for sounds are made of different ways and variations. Through phonemes, readers learn pronouncing words correctly and comprehending their meanings. Phonemes are an integral part of reading and listening, specifically in poetry, where they are very important to understand, meter which is solely based on stress patters and phonemes. That is the reason that poets stress upon each phoneme to understand poetry, for it is a sure way to understand a word by pronouncing it loudly.

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ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD PHONEME

Via French from Greek phōnēma sound, speech.

PRONUNCIATION OF PHONEME

GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF PHONEME

Phoneme is a noun.

WHAT DOES PHONEME MEAN IN ENGLISH?

Definition of phoneme in the English dictionary

The definition of phoneme in the dictionary is one of the set of speech sounds in any given language that serve to distinguish one word from another. A phoneme may consist of several phonetically distinct articulations, which are regarded as identical by native speakers, since one articulation may be substituted for another without any change of meaning. Thus /p/ and /b/ are separate phonemes in English because they distinguish such words as pet and bet, whereas the light and dark /l/ sounds in little are not separate phonemes since they may be transposed without changing meaning.

WORDS THAT RHYME WITH PHONEME

TRANSLATION OF PHONEME

Find out the translation of phoneme to 25 languages with our English multilingual translator.

TENDENCIES OF USE OF THE TERM «PHONEME»

The term «phoneme» is regularly used and occupies the 89.809 position in our list of most widely used terms in the English dictionary.

Principal search tendencies and common uses of phoneme

FREQUENCY OF USE OF THE TERM «PHONEME» OVER TIME

10 ENGLISH BOOKS RELATING TO «PHONEME»

Discover the use of phoneme in the following bibliographical selection. Books relating to phoneme and brief extracts from same to provide context of its use in English literature.

10 NEWS ITEMS WHICH INCLUDE THE TERM «PHONEME»

Find out what the national and international press are talking about and how the term phoneme is used in the context of the following news items.

REFERENCE

« EDUCALINGO. Phoneme [online]. Available <https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/phoneme>. Apr 2023 ».