What is "phoneme"?

Question

* How do I pronounce "Phoneme"
* Is "Phoneme" a noun a verb.
* Do you have an example of a "phoneme"?

Thx.

Answer 1

Phoneme is a set of similar sounds which contrasts with other such sets to differentiate words.
There is a difference between phonemes and allophones:
Phonemes are the sounds while allophones are the different representations of the same phoneme without changing in meaning like the different representaions of : \ I \
\ I \ sound has three allophones which are clear , dark and syllabic.
the \ I \ sound becomes clear when it is followed by a vowel as in "like" and "leaf".
the sound \ I \ becomes dark when it is followed by a consonant as in milk or if it comes finally in the word as in feel and Kill.
The \ I \ sound becomes syllabic when it comes finally in the word and proceded by a consonant especially a "stop" as in words like bottle and riddle.
( the stops are : the "p" sound ," b "sound , "t "sound ," d" sound , "K" sound and" g" sound )
phoneme is pronounced as \ fauneem\ and it is a noun.
For example :
the word cat has 3 phonemes : "kuh," "aah," and "tuh."
I hope I answered your question.

Answer 2

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.

Phonemes are not the physical segments themselves, but mental abstractions of them. A phoneme could be thought of as a family of related phones, called allophones, that the speakers of a language think of, and hear or see, as being categorically the same and differing only in the phonetic environment in which they occur.

In sign languages, the phoneme was formerly called a chereme (or cheireme), but usage changed to phoneme when it was recognized that the mental abstractions involved are essentially the same as in oral languages.

A phonemically "perfect" alphabet is one that has a single symbol for each phoneme.

Although the concept has been fundamental to the development of phonological analysis of language beneath the level of the syllable, some linguists reject the theoretical validity of the phoneme. Some think that phonemes are more a product of literacy (i.e., the need to categorize the phonetics of a language in order to write it down systematically with a minimum number of letters). Other critics charge that the mind processes sub-phonemic elements of speech (e.g., features) in meaningful ways.

A common test to determine whether two phones are allophones or separate phonemes relies on finding so-called minimal pairs: words that differ only in the phones in question.

Answer 3

The first answer is correct, but rather long.
Are you a linguistics student? Because otherwise you probably don't have need for this word.
A phoneme, in a nutshell, is a mental representation of a language sound.

It's a noun. It's pronounced with two syllables. The first one is similar to the last syllable in "telephone". The second one rhymes with "seem". Taivo gave you a great example of a phoneme.

Answer 4

Phoneme - any of a small set of units, usually about 20 to 60 in number, and different for each language, considered to be the basic distinctive units of speech sound by which morphemes, words, and sentences are represented. They are arrived at for any given language by determining which differences in sound function to indicate a difference in meaning, so that in English the difference in sound and meaning between pit and bit is taken to indicate the existence of different labial phonemes, while the difference in sound between the unaspirated p of spun and the aspirated p of pun, since it is never the only distinguishing feature between two different words, is not taken as ground for setting up two different p phonemes in English.

Answer 5

pho‧neme  /ˈfoʊnim/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[foh-neem] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun Linguistics any of a small set of units, usually about 20 to 60 in number, and different for each language, considered to be the basic distinctive units of speech sound by which morphemes, words, and sentences are represented. They are arrived at for any given language by determining which differences in sound function to indicate a difference in meaning, so that in English the difference in sound and meaning between pit and bit is taken to indicate the existence of different labial phonemes, while the difference in sound between the unaspirated p of spun and the aspirated p of pun, since it is never the only distinguishing feature between two different words, is not taken as ground for setting up two different p phonemes in English. Compare distinctive feature (def. 1).


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Origin: 1890–95; < F phonème < Gk phnēma sound, equiv. to phōnē-, verbid s. of phōneîn to make a sound (deriv. of phon sound, voice) + -ma n. suffix denoting result of action]

i got this from www.dictionary.com best edictionary on the web!

Answer 6

"Phoneme" is a noun. It is pronounced foe-neem. An example of a phoneme is /t/ in English. It is pronounced many different ways depending on the phonetic context (different "phones"). Thus the 't' in 'top' is phonetically different than the 't' in 'stop' and the 't' in 'writing' and the 't' at the end of 'cat'. But all these phones are predictable variants of the single phoneme /t/.

Answer 7

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneme