Phonemes and Allophones

The phoneme
• Phoneme: the smallest sound segment that is distinctive.
• Contrastive: the difference between two words is
dependent on the difference between two phonemes.
For example, fill /fɪl/ feel /fiːl/
/ɪ/ /iː/ (different phonemes)
• Phoneme identification technique: the minimal pairs
technique.
• Minimal pairs are pairs of words that differ in just one
phoneme.
Examples: cat /kæt/ cut /kʌt/
put /pʊt/ pot /pɒt
 Practice
• How do you prove that /t/, /k/, and /j/ are
phonemes in English?
 Allophones
• Allophones: phonetic variations of a phoneme.
• They are characterized by:
1- Free variation, i.e. one can be substituted for the other without changing
meaning.
2- Complementary distribution, i.e. the allophones never occur in the same
context.
• Examples 1: /l/ has the following allophones:
– [ l̥] the voiceless allophone when /l/ occurs after /p,t,k/ at the beginning of
a syllable
e.g. play [pl̥eɪ], clear [kl̥ɪə]
– [l] clear or light which occurs before vowels
e.g. lay [leɪ], lie [lɑɪ]
– [ł] dark which occurs before consonants or in final position,
e.g. illness [ɪƚnəs], ill [ɪł].
• Example 2: / b, d, g/ have two allophones:
– voiced [b,d, g] when occur in initial and medial positions
e.g. big [bɪg], dark [dɑːk], gap [gæp]
– devoiced [b̥,d̥, g̥] when occur in final position
e.g. made [meɪd̥], mug [mʌg̥], bulb [bʌlb]

• Example 3: /j, w/ have two allophones:

– voiced[j,w] when they occur initially, medially
– devoiced[j̥,w̥] when follow /p,t,k/
e.g. pure [pj̥ʊə], tune [tj̥uːn], queue [kj̥uː], twin [tw̥ɪn], queen
[kw̥iːn].
• Example 4: / p, t, k / have two allophones:
– Aspirated [ph , th , kh ] When occur initially followed by a vowel
pea / piː/ ⇒ [ phiː]
tea / tiː/ ⇒ [thiː]
key / kiː/⇒ [khiː]
– Unaspirated [ p, t, k ] When they are preceded by /s/ or when

they occur in final position

speak /spiːk/ ⇒ [spiːk]
stick /stɪk/ ⇒ [stɪk]
scream / skriːm / ⇒ [skriːm]
map /mæp/ ⇒ [mæp]
hat /hæt/ ⇒ [hæt]
make /meɪk/ ⇒ [meɪk]
 Practice
• How do you prove that light [l] dark [ƚ ] and
devoiced [ l] are allophones of the same
phoneme?