alliteration n
the repetition of an initial sound, usually a consonant, in two or more
words that occur close together. For example:
Down the drive dashed dashing Dan.
allomorph n
any of the different forms of a morpheme.
For example, in English the plural morpheme is often shown in writing by
adding -sto the end of a word, e.g. cat / kæt / – cats / kæts/. Sometimes this
plural morpheme is pronounced /z/, e.g. dog /d∞g/ – dogs /d∞gz/, and some-
times it is pronounced /iz /, e.g. class /kl∞ps/ – classes /ckl∞psiz/.
/s /, / z/, and /iz/ all have the same grammatical function in these examples,
they all show plural; they are all allomorphs of the plural morpheme.
allophone nallophonic adj
any of the different variants of a phoneme. The different allophones of a
phoneme are perceptibly different but similar to each other, do not change
the meaning of a word, and occur in different phonetic environments that
can be stated in terms of phonological rules. For example, the English
phoneme /p/ is aspirated(see aspiration) when it occurs at the beginning
of a syllable (as in pot) but unaspiratedwhen it is preceded by /s / (as in spot)
and may be unreleasedwhen it occurs at the end of an utterance (as in “he’s
not her type”). These aspirated, unaspirated, and unreleased sounds are
all heard and identified as the phoneme /p / and not as /b/; they are all
allophones of /p /.
alpha ( 7 ) n
another term for significance level
alphabet nalphabetic adj
a set of letters which are used to write a language.
The English alphabet uses roman script and consists of 26 letters – a, b,
c, etc.
The Russian alphabet uses cyrillic script and consists of 31 letters – a, œ,
b, etc.
The Arabic alphabet uses arabic script and consists of 29 letters – 4 , 5 ,
6 , etc.
see also alphabetic writing
alphabetic method n
a method of teaching children to read. It is used in teaching reading in the
mother tongue.
alphabetic method