Phonemes are contrastive, which means different phonemes can differentiate meanings. For example, fan (IPA: fæn) and van (IPA: væn) are different words because the initial phonemes (/f/ and /v/) contrast each other.

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Properties of Phonemes

Menn, L., &amp; Dronkers, N. (2017). Psycholinguistics: Introduction and Applications (2nd ed.). Plural Publishing Inc. 

Psycholinguistics: Introduction and Applications (2nd Edition)

Contrastive (Phonemes)

An allophone is a physical realization of the abstract phoneme. For example, the phoneme /t/ has the following allophones in American English: t, ɾ, tʰ, ʔ.

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