"In phonology, an allophone is one of multiple possible spoken sounds – or phones – or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language."
A variation of a phoneme that is used in different contexts or by different speakers.
Phonetics: The study of the sounds used in human language, how they are produced, and how they are perceived.
Articulatory phonetics: The study of the physical processes of speech production, including the position and movement of the speech organs.
Acoustic phonetics: The study of the physical properties of sound waves produced during speech, including their frequency, amplitude, and duration.
Auditory phonetics: The study of how speech sounds are perceived by the human ear and brain.
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA): A system of symbols used to represent speech sounds in written form.
Vowels: Speech sounds produced with no blockage of the airflow through the mouth or throat.
Consonants: Speech sounds produced with partial or complete blockage of the airflow through the mouth or throat.
Phonemes: The basic units of sound in a language, which can distinguish one word from another.
Allophones: Different variations of a single phoneme that occur in different contexts.
Minimal pairs: Two words in a language that differ by only one phoneme, such as “pin” and “bin.”.
Coarticulation: The overlapping of speech sounds in connected speech, where the pronunciation of one phoneme is affected by the surrounding phonemes.
Assimilation: The change in a speech sound to become more similar to a neighboring sound, such as the pronunciation of “handbag” as “ham-bag.”.
Elision: The omission of one or more sounds in a word to simplify pronunciation, such as the pronunciation of “government” as “govern-ment.”.
Intrusion: The insertion of an additional speech sound into a word to aid pronunciation, such as pronouncing “drawing” as “draw-wing.”.
Suprasegmental features: Aspects of speech beyond individual sounds, such as stress, intonation, and timing.
Stress: The emphasis given to certain syllables in a word, such as the first syllable in “banana.”.
Intonation: The rise and fall of pitch in speech, indicating the speaker’s attitude or meaning.
Timing: The length and rhythm of speech sounds, including pauses and speech rate.
Free variation allophones: These are the allophones that can be pronounced interchangeably without changing the meaning of a word. For example, the "t" sound in "little" and "kitten" can be pronounced differently without affecting the meaning of the words.
Complementary distribution allophones: These are the allophones that occur in specific phonetic environments. For instance, "p" and "b" sounds in English are complementary distribution allophones since "p" is used at the beginning of a word, while "b" is used after a vowel in a stressed syllable.
Aspirated and unaspirated allophones: Aspirated sounds are those produced with a burst of air whereas unaspirated sounds lack such an effect. This is common in languages such as English or Mandarin Chinese where aspiration is a defining feature, as can be seen when comparing the pronunciations of "pin" and "spin", or "p" and "ph.".
Nasalized and denasalized allophones: Nasalized allophones are those that are pronounced with airflow from the nasal cavity as well as through the mouth, whereas denasalized allophones lack this nasal airflow.
Fortis and lenis allophones: Fortis and lenis may refer to consonant sounds articulated using greater versus lesser muscle tension, respectively. For instance, the "t" sound in "cat" is pronounced with more tension than the "t" sound in "bat.".
Labialized and non-labialized allophones: Labialized sounds are produced when the lips are rounded, whereas non-labialized sounds are produced without any lip rounding. This type of allophony can be observed in some languages, such as Irish, which has labialized and non-labialized versions of many consonants.
Velarized and non-velarized allophones: Velarization refers to the production of a consonant sound with constriction at the back of the tongue near the velum. For instance, the "dark l" sound in English ("pool" and "cool") is velarized.
Voiced and voiceless allophones: Voiced sounds are produced with vocal cord vibration, whereas voiceless sounds lack such vibration. For example, the "s" sound in "sip" is voiceless, whereas the "z" sound in "zip" is voiced.
"...the voiceless plosive [t] (as in stop [ˈstɒp]) and the aspirated form [tʰ] (as in top [ˈtʰɒp]) are allophones for the phoneme /t/..."
"...these two are considered to be different phonemes in some languages such as Thai."
"[d] (as in dolor [doˈloɾ]) and [ð] (as in nada [ˈnaða]) are allophones for the phoneme /d/..."
"...these two are considered to be different phonemes in English..."
"The specific allophone selected in a given situation is often predictable from the phonetic context, with such allophones being called positional variants..."
"...but some allophones occur in free variation."
"Replacing a sound by another allophone of the same phoneme usually does not change the meaning of a word..."
"...but the result may sound non-native or even unintelligible."
"Native speakers of a given language perceive one phoneme in the language as a single distinctive sound..."
"...and are 'both unaware of and even shocked by' the allophone variations that are used to pronounce single phonemes."
"Allophone (...) from the Greek ἄλλος, állos, 'other' and φωνή, phōnē, 'voice, sound'"
"An allophone is one of multiple possible spoken sounds – or phones – or signs..."
"The specific allophone selected in a given situation is often predictable from the phonetic context..."
"...such allophones being called positional variants..."
"...these two are considered to be different phonemes in some languages such as Thai."
"Replacing a sound by another allophone of the same phoneme usually does not change the meaning of a word..."
"...the result may sound non-native or even unintelligible."
"Native speakers of a given language perceive one phoneme in the language as a single distinctive sound..."
"...and are 'both unaware of and even shocked by' the allophone variations that are used to pronounce single phonemes."