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.

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.

Allophones

University of Rochester

A phoneme is the smallest unit of speech that, if changed, alters the meaning of a word. For example, the sounds /k/ and /b/ are phonemes in English because they distinguish 'cat' from 'bat'. These fundamental sounds are combined to form morphemes and words.

Phonemes

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

Psycholinguistics: Introduction and Applications (2nd Edition)

Phonemes can still be "heard" even if they were covered up with extraneous noises. The brain can fill in the missing phonemes using context.

Phonemic restoration effect

The smallest sequence of phonemes that can be combined to form some meaning (morphemes).

Words (linguistics)

To make transcriptions easier, the International Phonetics Association (IPA) created the International Phonetics Alphabet (IPA) under the following principles:

1. One phoneme corresponds to only one symbol
2. One symbol corresponds to only one phoneme

Properties of Phonemes

A minimal pair is a pair of two distinct words that differ by only one phoneme. For example, fan (IPA: fæn) and van (IPA: væn) are minimal pairs because they are different words that differ only by one phoneme (here, /f/ and /v/). However, spider (IPA: spaɪɾəɹ) and spiders (IPA: spaɪɾəɹz) are not a minimal pair because "spiders" has more phonemes than "spider."

Minimal Pair

Transcribing spoken utterances is writing down the utterance systematically and thoroughly. There are different types of transcription depending on the level of detail included.

Transcription (Linguistics)

A language learner observes that changing the initial sound in the word 'pat' to a different sound can create the words 'bat' and 'cat'. However, they also notice that saying the word 'water' with a sharp 't' sound or a softer 'd'-like sound (as is common in some dialects) does not change the word's core meaning. Which statement best analyzes this observation based on the principles of how speech sounds function in a language?

Learn Before

Related

Learn After