Phonemes
The distinctive sounds of a language—the sounds that native speakers of the language
consider to be separate sounds. Changing from one phoneme to another changes the
meaning of the word, or sometimes it makes a word meaningless.
(A sound feature) is phonemic: This means that changing this feature makes a
di"erence in sound and meaning. It changes one sound into another. For example,
aspiration of stops is not phonemic in English. (An aspirated /t/ is still /t/.) It is
phonemic in Korean, Thai, and many other languages.
Related Glossary Terms
Index
Section 2 - Some Very Basic Concepts of Phonology
Section 2 - Some Very Basic Concepts of Phonology
Section 4 - The Consonants of American English
Section 8 - Syllables and Word Stress
Allophones
Find Term