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PHONE

WHAT IS A PHONE?
A phone is:
● a speech sound considered as a physical event
without regard to its place in the sound system of a
language — phone in a sentence.

● any distinct speech sound or gesture, regardless of


whether the exact sound is critical to the meanings of
words.
● In phonetics and linguistics, a phone is any distinct
speech sound or gesture, regardless of whether the
exact sound is critical to the meanings of words. In
contrast, a phoneme is a speech sound that, in a given
language, if it were swapped with another phoneme,
would change the meaning of the word. Phones are
absolute, not specific to any language, but phonemes
can be discussed only in reference to specific
languages.
By convention, animal sounds, etc. do NOT count as "phones", because
"phone" comes from a Greek word "phoné" that meant human voice. A
"phone" is a minimal SEGMENT of speech sound: the smallest chunk of
simultaneously occurring speech noises that can be "cut out" from the
speech stream. For example, to produce an [m] several organs must
cooperate, with their peculiar 'noises' - you must expel air, your vocal
cords must vibrate, you must close your oral cavity, the air must pass
through your nasal cavity, you must stop it with your lips, and you must let
it come out through your nostrils. The [m] can, therefore, be analysed as a
continuant, voiced, bilabial, nasal sound - in opposition to [p], [b] or [n],
which share some of those features but lack others. Think of all those
"speech features" sounding simultaneously and imagine a cut at the point
where they stop; that is a "segment", and a "phone". ["segment" and
"speech feature" are different concepts].
A phone will vary depending on what its neighbouring phones are -
for example, in English, [m] is different in "small", "immediate",
"lamb", "meet", "rims", etc., and you may yourself pronounce [m]
differently even in the same word on successive occasions, but such
differences are accepted as yielding mere 'tokens' of the SAME
phone. A "phoneme", in contrast, is the MINIMAL SEGMENT of
speech THAT CANNOT BE REPLACED BY ANOTHER WITHOUT
CHANGING MEANING. E.g., in English, /m/ and /n/, or /n/ and /ng/,
similar enough as they are, are different phonemes, because "thin"
and "thing", or "neat" and "meat" have different meanings. So, your
criterion: two "phones" point to different "phonemes" if exchanging
them LEADS TO A CHANGE OF MEANING. Whereas the number of
phones is infinite, the number of phonemes is fixed, and small -
between twenty and fifty, depending on the language.
Each language has its own 'system' of phonemes, all
‘in opposition to’ each other depending on the
"distinctive speech features" (voice, nasality, labiality,
etc.) they have/lack. If you compare languages, the
‘types’ of phones used in each will not completely
coincide, certain differences between phones will
suffice to change meaning (i.e., become ‘phonemic’)
in one, but not the other, etc.
● A phone is a unit of speech sound. It may refer to
any speech sound or gesture without regard of its
place in phonology of a language. A phoneme is a
set of phones or a set of sound features that are
thought of as the same element within the
phonology of a particular language.
PHONEMES

WHAT IS A PHONEME?
A phoneme is the smallest contrastive unit which may bring about a
change of meaning.
The smallest distinctive or contrastive units of the sound system of a
language.
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.
Examples:the phoneme /k/, which occurs in words such
as cat, kit, scat, skit.
Here are examples of the phonemes /r/ and /l/ occurring in a minimal
pair: rip lip
The phones [r] and [l] contrast in identical environments and are
considered to be separate phonemes. The phonemes /r/ and /l/ serve to
distinguish the word rip from the word lip.

A phoneme is a sound that makes a difference in meaning in a


language. Different languages use different sets of phonemes to
communicate ideas.
English has about forty phonemes while Spanish has about twenty-
two.
To determine whether a sound functions as a
phoneme in a language, a linguist tries to find two
words that differ by just one sound. For example,
in English, pet and bet are words that signify
different meanings, and the only difference in
sound is the
difference between the “p” sound in pet and the
“b” sound in bet , so a linguist might hypothesize
that “p” and “b” are two phonemes in English.
The linguist would then look for other pairs of
words like pan and ban to confirm the
hypothesis that “p” and “b” are phonemes of
English. These words are referred to as
minimal pairs because they differ by just one
phoneme. The presence of a minimal pair is
evidence that a sound functions as a
phoneme in a language.
MINIMAL PAIRS
Phonemic distinctions in a language can be tested
via pairs and sets of words. When two words such
as pat and bat are identical in form except for a
contrast in one phoneme, occurring in the same
position, the two words are described as a minimal
pair. More accurately, they would be classified as a
minimal pair in the phonology of English.
(Arabic, for example, does not have this contrast
between /p/ and /b/.) Other examples of English
minimal pairs are fan–van, bet–bat, site–side.
Such pairs have traditionally been used in the
teaching and testing of English as a second or
foreign
language to help students develop the ability to
understand the contrast in meaning based on the
minimal sound contrast.
When a group of words can be differentiated, each
one from the others, by changing one phoneme
(always in the same position in the word), then we
have a minimal set.
For example, one minimal set based on the vowel
phonemes of English could include feat, fit, fat, fate,
fought, foot, and another minimal set based on
consonant phonemes could have big, pig, rig, fig, dig,
wig.
FREE VARIATION
In phonetics and phonology, free variation is an alternative
pronunciation of a word (or of a phoneme in a word) that
doesn't affect the word's meaning.
Free variation is "free" in the sense that it doesn't result in a
different word. As William B. McGregor observes, "Absolutely
free variation is rare. Usually there are reasons for it, perhaps
the speaker's dialect, perhaps the emphasis the speaker wants
to put on the word" (Linguistics: An Introduction, 2009).
When phonemes are in free variation, speakers are
sometimes strongly aware of the fact (especially where
such variation is only visible across a dialectal or
sociolectal divide), and will note, for example, that
tomato is pronounced differently in British and American
English (/təˈmɑːˌtəʊ/ and /təˈmeɪˌtoʊ/ respectively),[5] or
that either has two pronunciations which are fairly
randomly distributed. However, only a very small
proportion of English words show such variations.
Free variation is the interchangeable relationship
between two phones, in which the phones may
substitute for one another in the same environment
without causing a change in meaning.
A relation between the members of a pair of
phones, phonemes,morphs, or other linguistic
entities such that either of the two mayoccur in
the same position with no change in the
meaning of theutterance: in the first syllable of
“economics,” “e” and “ē” are in freevariation.
COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION
Complementary distribution is the mutually exclusive relationship
between two phonetically similar segments. It exists when one
segment occurs in an environment where the other segment never
occurs.
Examples:
(English)
The phones [p] and [pH] are in complementary distribution. [pH] occurs
syllable-initially in a stressed syllable, but [p] never does
The rationale for complementary distribution comes from
one of the principles of phonemics:
● Sounds tend to be modified by their environments.
A phoneme is made up of certain features that are basic to it.
When this phoneme occurs in certain phonetic environments,
one or more of its features may undergo changes caused by
those environments.
A distribution of a pair of speech sounds or a pair of linguistic
forms such that the one is found only in environments where
the other is not (as the unaspirated t of English stone and the
aspirated t of English tone.
CONTRASTIVE DISTRIBUTION
In phonology, two sounds of a language are said to be in
contrastive distribution if replacing one with the other in the same
phonological environment results in a change in meaning. If a
sound is in contrastive distribution, it is considered a phoneme in
that language.
For example, in English, the sounds [p] and [b] can both occur
word-initially, as in the words pat and bat (minimal pairs), which are
distinct morphemes. Therefore, [p] and [b] are in contrastive
distribution, and thus they are phonemes of English.
Note that two sounds which are in contrastive distribution in one
language can be in complementary distribution or free variation in
another. These sounds occur in English, as in the word team
[tʰiːm] and steam [stiːm], but their occurrence is purely dependent
upon phonological context. Therefore, in English, [tʰ] and [t] are
not in contrastive distribution, but rather complementary
distribution.
COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION
In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct
from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the
relationship between two different elements of the same
kind, where one element is found in one set of
environments and the other element is found in a non-
intersecting (i.e. complementary) set of environments. It
often indicates that two superficially different elements are
the same linguistic unit at a deeper level. It is possible for
more than two elements to be in complementary
distribution with one another.

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