A sound in a particular language which distinguishes one word from another: see minimal pairs.
The smallest significant unit of sound in a language. In English, it corresponds roughly to a letter of the alphabet (e.g., apt, tap, and pat are all made up of the same phonemes).
a smallest contrastive unit in the sound system of a particular language; a minimal unit that serves to distinguish between meanings of words. Compare with phone. For example, in American English, /p/ and /b/ are distinct phonemes because pat and bat are distinct; however, the two different sounds of /t/ in tick and stick are not distinct in English, even though they are distinct in other languages such as Thai. phone
A minimally distinct sound in the context of a particular spoken language. For example, in UK English /p/ and /b/ are distinct phonemes because 'pat' and 'bat' are distinct.
The basic units of meaningful spoken sound in a language, by which morphemes, words, and sentences are constructed. Languages usually have about 20-60 phonemes, which are different in each language. For example, '' and '' are recognized as different phonemes in the English language because they not only represent different sounds, but also carry different meanings (as in pit versus bit).
The smallest unit of sound in a word. May be represented by one or more letters. There are approximately 44 phonemes in English.
the smallest unit of sound within a language; e.g., /b
The smallest unit of sound in a language. The spoken word CAT, for example, has three phonemes (the sounds represented by the letters , , and ). A phoneme may be represented by single letters, or groups of letters. The word BACK has four phonemes, the sounds represented by the individual letters , , , and the two-letter combination CK)
The basic sound segment or unit of spoken language that can distinguish words ("cat vs. rat")
a class of sounds that differ slightly from one another but that may be substituted for one another without any change of meaning.
A notional phonological unit of language, which conveys meaning, and which cannot be analysed into smaller meaningful units.
One of the smallest speech sounds that are capable of distinguishing words in a given language or dialect.
The distinctive sounds of a particular language system are its phonemes, studied in phonology. Thus in English the sounds /p/ and /b/ are different phonemes because they distinguish /pi:k/ peak from /bi:k/ beak; the sounds [p] and [ph] are different phonemes in Hindi because they distinguish two words, but do not in English as they simply form two variant allophones of the same phoneme without ever distinguishing two words.
The smallest unit of speech that serves to distinguish one utterance from another in a language.
(linguistics) one of a small set of speech sounds that are distinguished by the speakers of a particular language
a basic sound of English speech--look in a dictionary, the pronunciation key tells you what they are
a basic sound, or range of similar sounds, that can distinguish words in a given language
a basic, theoretical unit of sound that can change the meaning of a word
a basic unit of sound in a language
a distinctive, abstract sound unit with a distinctive feature
a distinctive sound that can be considered a kind of sonic building block in the articulation of words in a given language
a linguistic term for a conceptual sound
a linguistic term for the position of the lips, teeth and tongue as they make sounds
a meaning of a letter or digraph, the "mouth move" signaled by a letter
a member of the set of the smallest units of speech that serve to distinguish one utterance from another in a language or dialect
a mental representation of a sound that has predictable variants
an abstract linguistic unit
a set of allophones or individual non-contrastive speech segments
a small unit of speech that corresponds to the letters of the alphabet
a sound unit that carries some meaning with it
a unit of significant sound
The smallest unit of speech that can be combined with others to make words. ( Hall & Moats, 1999)
The units of vocalization distinguished by native speakers of a language. Unlike ape calls and cries, phonemes are all meaningless by themselves, having meaning only in combinations ( words). It is important to realize that phonemes are categories that standardize. For example, Japanese has a phoneme that is in between the English /L/ and /R/ in sound space. Those English phonemes are mistakenly treated by Japanese speakers as mere variants on the Japanese phoneme. Because of this " capture" by the familiar category, those Japanese speakers who can't hear the difference will also pronounce them the same, as in the familiar rice-lice confusion.
Smallest measurement of speech sound. These elementary speech sounds are represented by the letters of the alphabet. In the English alphabet, however, some phonemes are represented by a combination of letters (th or sh) and some letters represent more than one phoneme (c, g, o).
The smallest unit of speech sound that makes a difference in communication (e.g. fly consists of three phonemes: /f/-/l/-/`i/).
A meaningful sound, the smallest unit of speech which distinguishes one word from another in a given language. In the pair of words 'bat' and 'mat', the distinguishing sounds [b] and [m] are both phonemes.
One of the basic units of sounds of which a language us built. English has just 44 phonemes. For example, the phonemes (sounds) /k/, /a/, and /t/ , when blended together, produce the spoken word /cat/. To produce writing, the phonemes are represented by written symbols called graphemes.
Abstract categories of speech sounds (vowels and consonants) grouped together to create words. For example, SAPI provides two default pronunciations of the word hello: "h ax l ow" and "h eh l ow." Each group of sounds, separated by spaces, represents a phoneme.
A set of speech sounds in any given language.
The smallest phonetic unit in a language that can add meaning to a word.
The smallest unit of speech that distinguishes one word from another. For example the word int has one more phoneme than it
The smallest unit of sound which causes a change of meaning: cattle - kettle /kætl/ - /ketl/; sleep - sleeve, /sli:p/ - /sli:v/. Phonemic sounds are written in sloping brackets / /. There are usually considered to be 24 consonant and 20 vowel phonemes in RP.
Significant sound contrast in a language that serves to distinguish meaning, as in minimal pairs.
The basic unit of sound or speech in any language made up of one or more phones written between backslashes /t/ or /d/.
The smallest unit in a language that is capable of conveying a change in meaning. For example, the m in mat and the b in bat. There are 41 phonemes in the English language Phonemic repertoire :: The range of various phonemes (speech sounds) that a child is able to produce. Generally, certain speech sounds seem to develop earlier than others over a period of several years.
A single basic sound of a particular spoken language. For example, the English language contains 40 phonemes that represent all basic sounds used with the language. The English word one can be represented with three phonemes, - uh - . Phonemes vary between languages because of guttural and nasal inflections and syllable constructs.
The smallest contrastive unit of sound in a language.
a speech sound that can signal a difference in meaning
Sound or set of sounds that makes a difference in meaning to the speakers of a language.
A phoneme is the smallest unit of the sound system of a language. If two sounds have the same phoneme, they are treated equally. A phoneme is represented between slashes.
The smallest speech sounds that makes a difference in the meaning of a word. (There are 39-45 phonemes in the English language.) Example: Changing the phoneme |s| in ´sad´ to the phoneme |m| would change the word ´sad´ to the word ´mad´.
In linguistics, a set of closely related speech sounds (phones) regarded as a single sound. For example, the sound of "r" in red, bring, or round is a phoneme.
the minimal unit in the sound system of a language which identifies a contrast in meaning. For example, in English, the sounds [p] and [b] are different phonemes because substituting one for the other changes the meaning of the word - e.g. pin to bin. Orthographies which show a close correspondence between letters and sounds – ideally, one distinct letter for each distinct sound - are described as phonemic. A phonemic transcription of a word shows only the details of pronunciation which are unpredictable based on the sound structure of the language.
The smallest sound utterance.
A minimal sound of speech.
Phonemes are the smallest units of sound that change the meanings of spoken words. For example, if you change the first phoneme in bat from /b/ to /p/, the word bat changes to pat. English has about 41-44 phonemes. A few words, such as or oh, have only one phoneme. Most words have more than one phoneme. The word if has two phonemes /i/ and /f/.
The total collection of allophones that operate similarly.
the smallest unit of sound in a language. (328)
The smallest unit of speech that affects the meaning of a word. A sound unit. The in cat and the in mat are phonemes.
Smallest unit of sound that can be combined to make words in a language, i.e.,/a/,/p/,/sh
The smallest part of speech that people can hear and separate, such as /d/ /o/ and /g/ in the word dog.
the smallest single identifiable sound, e.g. the letters 'sh' represent just one sound, but 'sp' represents two (/s/ and /p/)
The vocal gestures from which words are constructed in a language; the smallest unit of speech that serves to distinguish one utterance from another (e.g. PAT and FAT are distinguished by the initial phoneme).
Smallest distinctive sound unit. Some phonemes have slightly different forms called "allophones," similar in sound, but with small differences often based on complimentary distribution (appearing in different sound environments).
Smallest unit of sound that changes the meanings of words.
The word Phoneme is a term used to describe the sound that a letter makes in the alphabet. Phoneme training is a building block of the phonics method of learning, and it is generally taught up to the first grade. Many children enter the school system at the kindergarten level with some form of “Phonemic Awareness”.
Smallest unit of sound found in speech.
The smallest unit of sound. The word "up," for instance contains two phonemes: "uh" and "puh."
The smallest structural unit of sound in any language that can be used to distinguish one word from another.
The smallest unit in the sound system of a language; it serves to distinguish utterances from one another. See also morpheme.
A speech sound that distinguishes one word from another, e.g. the sounds "d" and "t" in the words "bid" and "bit." A phoneme is the smallest phonetic unit that can carry meaning.(Encarta® World English Dictionary, North American Edition)
In human language, a phoneme is the theoretical representation of a sound. It is a sound of a language as represented (or imagined) without reference to its position in a word or phrase. A phoneme, therefore, is the conception of a sound in the most neutral form possible and distinguishes between different words or morphemes — changing an element of a word from one phoneme to another produces either a different word or obvious nonsense.