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Home/Linguistics/Using the words top, foot, better, and football among your examples, and focusing on the phoneme /t/, explain in some detail, as if to a person who has never studied phonology, the relationship between a phoneme and an allophone.

Using the words top, foot, better, and football among your examples, and focusing on the phoneme /t/, explain in some detail, as if to a person who has never studied phonology, the relationship between a phoneme and an allophone.

While a phoneme is one structural element of an utterance, an allophone is a variation of one phoneme that is still perceived as one and the same sound by the speakers of a language. For example, when English speakers hear the words top, foot, better, and football pronounced, they perceive the/t/ sound in all of them, meaning that the/t/ phoneme is present in all of them.

However, there is more diversity than it might seem at first glance. For example, in the word top, English speakers usually utter the with a puff of air coming from their mouth before uttering the next sound; this is an aspirated allophone of /t/, produced in IPA as /tʰ/. Next, the word foot gets no aspiration, being a /t/ phoneme.

In the word better, however, the sound is different for many speakers: some may utter it in the glottis–meaning that the sound is made deep in the throat–producing /ʔ/ allophone; others, especially North Americans, produce an /ɾ/ allophone, sounding a bit more like. Finally, the word football is not released completely when the sound following it is uttered, meaning that it is an allophone /t̚/. Hence, while speakers hear and perceive one /t/ phoneme, it is actually not the same sound in the mentioned words but the allophones of /t/.

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Academic.Tips. (2023) 'Using the words top, foot, better, and football among your examples, and focusing on the phoneme /t/, explain in some detail, as if to a person who has never studied phonology, the relationship between a phoneme and an allophone'. 10 February.

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Academic.Tips. (2023, February 10). Using the words top, foot, better, and football among your examples, and focusing on the phoneme /t/, explain in some detail, as if to a person who has never studied phonology, the relationship between a phoneme and an allophone. https://academic.tips/question/using-the-words-top-foot-better-and-football-among-your-examples-and-focusing-on-the-phoneme-t-explain-in-some-detail-as-if-to-a-person-who-has-never-studied-phonology-the-relationship-betwee/

References

Academic.Tips. 2023. "Using the words top, foot, better, and football among your examples, and focusing on the phoneme /t/, explain in some detail, as if to a person who has never studied phonology, the relationship between a phoneme and an allophone." February 10, 2023. https://academic.tips/question/using-the-words-top-foot-better-and-football-among-your-examples-and-focusing-on-the-phoneme-t-explain-in-some-detail-as-if-to-a-person-who-has-never-studied-phonology-the-relationship-betwee/.

1. Academic.Tips. "Using the words top, foot, better, and football among your examples, and focusing on the phoneme /t/, explain in some detail, as if to a person who has never studied phonology, the relationship between a phoneme and an allophone." February 10, 2023. https://academic.tips/question/using-the-words-top-foot-better-and-football-among-your-examples-and-focusing-on-the-phoneme-t-explain-in-some-detail-as-if-to-a-person-who-has-never-studied-phonology-the-relationship-betwee/.


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Academic.Tips. "Using the words top, foot, better, and football among your examples, and focusing on the phoneme /t/, explain in some detail, as if to a person who has never studied phonology, the relationship between a phoneme and an allophone." February 10, 2023. https://academic.tips/question/using-the-words-top-foot-better-and-football-among-your-examples-and-focusing-on-the-phoneme-t-explain-in-some-detail-as-if-to-a-person-who-has-never-studied-phonology-the-relationship-betwee/.

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"Using the words top, foot, better, and football among your examples, and focusing on the phoneme /t/, explain in some detail, as if to a person who has never studied phonology, the relationship between a phoneme and an allophone." Academic.Tips, 10 Feb. 2023, academic.tips/question/using-the-words-top-foot-better-and-football-among-your-examples-and-focusing-on-the-phoneme-t-explain-in-some-detail-as-if-to-a-person-who-has-never-studied-phonology-the-relationship-betwee/.

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