Definition:
The smallest sound unit in a language that is capable of conveying a distinct meaning, such as the s of sing and the r of ring. Adjective: phonemic. See also: allophone.
Etymology:
From the Greek, "sound"Examples and Observations:
- "The central concept in phonology is the phoneme, which is a distinctive category of sounds that all the native speakers of a language or dialect perceive as more or less the same. . . . [A]lthough the two [k] sounds in kicked are not identical--the first one is pronounced with more aspiration than the second--they are heard as two instances of [k] nonetheless. The same is true of the [l] sounds in lip and milk: They are often articulated in slightly different ways but are still regarded as essentially the same sound by speakers of English. Since phonemes are categories rather than actual sounds, they are not tangible things; instead, they are abstract, theoretical types or groups that are only psychologically real. (In other words, we cannot hear phonemes, but we assume they exist because of how the sounds in languages pattern as they are used by speakers.)
(T. E. Murray, The Structure of English, Allyn and Bacon, 1995) - "The concepts of phoneme and allophone become clearer by analogy with the letters of the alphabet. We recognize that a symbol is a despite considerable variations in size, colour, and (to a certain extent) shape. The representation of the letter a is affected in handwriting by the preceding or following letters to which it is joined. Writers may form the letter idiosyncratically and may vary their writing according to whether they are tired or in a hurry or nervous. The variants in the visual representations are analogous to the allophones of a phoneme, and what is distinctive in contrast to other alphabetic letters is analogous to the phoneme."
(Sidney Greenbaum, The Oxford English Grammar, 1996)
Pronunciation: FO-neem
