Phoneme: Difference between revisions

In [[linguistics]] and specifically [[phonology]], a '''phoneme''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|f|oʊ|n|iː|m}}) is any set of similar ''[[Phone (phonetics)|phones]]'' (speech sounds) that, within a given [[language]], is perceptually regarded as a single distinct unit, a single sound, and helps distinguish one [[word]] from another.<ref>{{Cite_Merriam-Webster|phoneme}}</ref>

The words ''cell'' and ''set'' have the exact same sequence of sounds, except for being distinguished by their final consonant sounds: {{IPA|/sɛl/}} versus {{IPA|/sɛt/}} in the [[International Phonetic Alphabet]] (IPA). Thus, in English, {{IPA|/l/}} and {{IPA|/t/}} are each phonemes in the English language. Specifically they are consonant phonemes, along with {{IPA|/s/}}, while {{IPA|/ɛ/}} is a vowel phoneme. English's spelling does not strictly conform to its phonemes, so that the words ''knot'' {{IPA|/nɒt/}}, ''nut'' {{IPA|/nʌt/}}, and ''gnat'' {{IPA|/næt/}}, regardless of their spelling, all share the consonant phonemes {{IPA|/n/}} and {{IPA|/t/}}, differing only by their vowel phonemes: {{IPA|/ɒ/}}, {{IPA|/ʌ/}}, and {{IPA|/æ/}}. In the IPA, these words may be transcribed as {{IPA|/nɒt/}}, {{IPA|/nʌt/}}, and {{IPA|/næt/}}, respectively.

The soundsSounds that are perceived as phonemes differ between languages, so that {{IPAblink|n|audio=y}} or {{IPAblink|ŋ|audio=y}} are separate phonemes in English (distinguishing words like ''sin'' from ''sing''), but they constitute a single phoneme in Spanish, in which {{IPA|[pan]}} and {{IPA|[paŋ]}}, for instance, are merely interpreted as regional or dialect-specific ways of pronouncing the same word (''pan'': the Spanish word for "bread"). Such spoken variations on a single phoneme, like in the Spanish example, are known by linguists as ''[[allophone]]s''. In the IPA, linguists use [[Slash (punctuation)|slashes]] to transcribe phonemes but [[square brackets]] to transcribe more precise pronunciation details, including allophones; they describe this basic distinction as ''phonemic'' versus ''phonetic''. Thus, the pronunciation patterns of ''tap'' versus ''tab'', or ''pat'' versus ''bat'', can be transcribed phonemically and are written between slashes (including {{IPA|/p/}}, {{IPA|/b/}}, etc.), while nuances of exactly how a speaker pronounces {{IPA|/p/}} are phonetic and written between brackets, such as {{IPA|[p]}} (for the ''p'' in ''spit'') versus {{IPA|[pʰ]}} (for the ''p'' in ''pit'', which in English is an [[aspirated consonant|aspirated]] allophone of /p/: pronounced with an extra burst of air).

There are various views as to exactly what phonemes are and how a given language should be analyzed in phonemic terms. Generally, a phoneme is regarded as an [[abstraction]] of a set (or [[equivalence class]]) of spoken sound variations (phones) that are nevertheless perceived as a single basic unit, a singleof sound, by the ordinary native speakers of a given language. For example, in [[American English]], the sound spelled with the symbol ''t'' is usually [[Articulatory phonetics|articulated]] with: a [[glottal stop]] {{IPA|[ʔ]}} (or a similar glottalized sound) in the word ''cat'', an [[alveolar flap]] {{IPA|[ɾ]}} in ''dating'', an [[voiceless alveolar plosive|alveolar plosive]] {{IPA|[t]}} in ''stick'', and an [[aspirated consonant|aspirated]] alveolar plosive {{IPA|[tʰ]}} in ''tie''; however, English speakers perceive or "hear" all of these sounds as merely being variants (allophones) of a single phoneme that is traditionally transcribed in the IPA as {{IPA|/t/}}. Allophones each have technically different articulations, yet their differences do not create meaningful distinctions between words. 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 that is actually uttered and heard.