allophone
Central to the concept of the phoneme is the idea that it may be pronounced in many different ways. In English (BBC) we take it for granted that the /r/ sound in 'ray' and 'tray' are "the same sound" (i.e. the same phoneme), but in reality the two sounds are very different - the /r/ in 'ray' is voiced and non-fricative, while the /r/ sound in 'tray' is voiceless and fricative. In phonemic transcription we use the same symbol /r/ for both (the slant brackets indicate that phonemic symbols are being used), but we know that the allophones of /r/ include the voiced non-fricative sound and the voiceless fricative one. Using the square brackets that indicate phonetic (allophonic) symbols, the former is [̻] and the latter []. In theory a phoneme can have an infinite number of allophones, but in practice for descriptive purposes we tend to concentrate on the ones that occur most regularly.
Central to the concept of the phoneme is the idea that it may be pronounced in many different ways. In English (BBC) we take it for granted that the /r/ sound in 'ray' and 'tray' are "the same sound" (i.e. the same phoneme), but in reality the two sounds are very different - the /r/ in 'ray' is voiced and non-fricative, while the /r/ sound in 'tray' is voiceless and fricative. In phonemic transcription we use the same symbol /r/ for both (the slant brackets indicate that phonemic symbols are being used), but we know that the allophones of /r/ include the voiced non-fricative sound and the voiceless fricative one. Using the square brackets that indicate phonetic (allophonic) symbols, the former is [̻] and the latter []. In theory a phoneme can have an infinite number of allophones, but in practice for descriptive purposes we tend to concentrate on the ones that occur most regularly.
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