User:Megaman en m/Allophone
Allophone is a term used in phonology (//; from the Greek ἄλλος, állos, "other" and φωνή, phōnē, "voice, sound"). It is one of the possible spoken sounds, or phones, or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a specific language.[1] For example, [t] (as in Tom [tɑm]) and [ɾ] (as in Letter [ˈɫɛɾɚ]) are allophones for the phoneme /t/ in English. These two sounds are said to be different phonemes in Spanish. On the other hand [d] (as in dolor [do̞ˈlo̞r]) and [ð] (as in nada [ˈnaða]) are allophones for the phoneme /d/ in Spanish, but in English these two sounds are said to be different phonemes.
The allophone in a word is often predictable from the sounds around it. These types of allophones are called positional variants. Some allophones can also happen in free variation. This means that multiple allophones can be used in the same position without changing the meaning of the word. When a sound is replaced by another allophone of the same phoneme, the meaning of the word will not change, but the word will sound strange to a native speaker.
Native speakers of a language think that one phoneme in their language is only one sound. They are surprised when they learn that there are different versions of single phonemes.[2][3]
History of idea[change | change source]
The term "allophone" was made by Benjamin Lee Whorf in the 1940s. He helped a lot in making early phoneme theory.[4] George L. Trager and Bernard Bloch made the term popular in a 1941 paper on English phonology[5]. It then became popular within the American structuralist tradition.[6]
Complementary and free-variant allophones and assimilation[change | change source]
When someone pronounced a phoneme, it is different from the other times that they pronounce it. Because of this, there is some debate over how real and how universal phonemes really are (see phoneme for details). Only a few changes are important because speakers know that they are different.
There are two types of allophones. One of them must be pronounced with a specific allophone in a specific situation. The other type is when the speaker can choose which allophone they use without them knowing.
Allophones can be complementary. This means that only one allophone of the phoneme can be used in a certain situation. If a different allophone is used, the speaker will not sound like a native. In this situation, choosing one allophone means that the other allophone can not be used. The allophone that is not used is used in another situation. This is what complementary means. If an allophone is complementary, people use each allophone in a specific phonetic situation. It can also be a part of a phonological process.[7]
In other situations, the speaker can choose which allophone they want to use. People call these free variant allophones.
Another example of an allophone is assimilation. In assimilation a phoneme sounds more like another phoneme. An example of assimilation is voicing in consonants. Voicing is when the vocal cords vibrates. A voiceless consonant becomes voiced before and after voiced consonants. Voiced consonants can also become voiceless before and after voiceless consonants.
Allotone[change | change source]
An allotone is a term that is sometimes used for a tonic allophone. An example is the neutral tone in Standard Mandarin.
References[change | change source]
- ↑ R. Jakobson, Structure of Language and Its Mathematical Aspects: Proceedings of symposia in applied mathematics, AMS Bookstore, 1980, ISBN 978-0-8218-1312-6,
...An allophone is the set of phones contained in the intersection of a maximal set of phonetically similar phones and a primary phonetically related set of phones....
- ↑ B.D. Sharma, Linguistics and Phonetics, Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd., 2005, ISBN 978-81-261-2120-5,
... The ordinary native speaker is, in fact, often unaware of the allophonic variations of his phonemes ...
- ↑ Y. Tobin, Phonology as human behavior: theoretical implications and clinical applications, Duke University Press, 1997, ISBN 978-0-8223-1822-4,
...always found that native speakers are clearly aware of the phonemes of their language but are both unaware of and even shocked by the plethora of allophones and the minutiae needed to distinguish between them....
- ↑
{{cite book}}: Empty citation (help) - ↑ Trager, George L. (1959). "The Systematization of the Whorf Hypothesis". Anthropological Linguistics. 1 (1). Operational Models in Synchronic Linguistics: A Symposium Presented at the 1958 Meetings of the American Anthropological Association: 31–35. JSTOR 30022173.
{{cite journal}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - ↑
{{cite book}}: Empty citation (help) - ↑ Barbara M. Birch, English L2 reading: getting to the bottom, Psychology Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-8058-3899-2,
...When the occurrence of one allophone is predictable when compared to the other, as in this case, we call this complementary distribution. Complementary distribution means that the allophones are 'distributed' as complements....