phoneme

Noun

Meaning

(linguistics) one of a small set of speech sounds that are distinguished by the speakers of a particular language

Source: WordNet

Synonyms

rune ABCs consonant cerebral assimilation dental glide labial guttural ideograph phone fundamentals glottal continuant dissimilation
Show all synonyms

Antonyms

incorrect erroneous complete silence absolute silence

Hypernyms

sound phone speech sound

Hyponyms

allophone

Related terms

phonetic phonology phonics phonetically phonetics phonic

Phrases with the word

vowel phoneme vocalic phoneme

Anagrams

phenome

Examples

A few minimal pairs like falamos /fɐˈlɐmuʃ/ "we speak" vs. falámos /fɐˈlamuʃ/ "we spoke" seem to clearly indicate that /ɐ/ must be a phoneme, but other analyses are possible. Source: Internet

A different kind of issue is that of the Old Turkish genitive /Xŋ/ (where "X" stands for any phoneme) and Old Japanese genitive /no/. Source: Internet

Allophonic variation may be conditioned, in which case a certain phoneme is realized as a certain allophone in particular phonological environments, or it may be free in which case it may vary randomly. Source: Internet

Consonant phonics patterns * Consonant digraphs are those spellings wherein two letters are used to represent a single consonant phoneme. Source: Internet

A given phoneme may be represented by different letters in different periods. Source: Internet

An archiphoneme is an object sometimes used to represent an underspecified phoneme. Source: Internet

Close letter words and terms

phonematic phonematically phonematics phonemehood phonemic phonemic merger