Phonetic differences that make meaning distinct in a given language
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This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.
Phonemic contrast refers to a minimal phonetic difference, that is, small differences in speech sounds, that makes a difference in how the sound is perceived by listeners, and can therefore lead to different mental lexical entries for words. For example, whether a sound is voiced or unvoiced (consider /b/ and /p/ in English) matters for how a sound is perceived in many languages, such that changing this phonetic feature can yield a different word (consider bat and pat in English); see Phoneme. Another example in English of a phonemic contrast would be the difference between leak and league; the minimal difference of voicing between [k] and [g] does lead to the two utterances being perceived as different words. On the other hand, an example that is not a phonemic contrast in English is the difference between [sit] and [siːt].[1] In this case the minimal difference of vowel length is not a contrast in English and so those two forms would be perceived as different pronunciations of the same word seat.
[ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters. Phonemiccontrast refers to a minimal phonetic difference, that is, small differences...
an example of phonemic split.) Sound changes generally operate for a limited period of time, and once established, new phonemiccontrasts rarely remain...
chroneme has been used to indicate contrastive length or duration of phonemes. In languages in which tones are phonemic, the tone phonemes may be called...
cases, the phonemiccontrast is said to be neutralized. In syllable-initial position, the nasal consonants show a three-way phonemiccontrast between /m/...
analyzed as separate phonemes from short vowels: Vowel length contrasts with more than two phonemic levels are rare, and several hypothesized cases of three-level...
square brackets "[ ]". A transcription that specifically denotes only phonemiccontrasts may be enclosed in slashes "/ /" instead. If one is unsure, it is...
approach, and, indeed, making it possible, is Harris's recognition that phonemiccontrast cannot be derived from distributional analysis of phonetic notations...
Arabic and Latin have a two-way phonemiccontrast between short and long vowels. The Mixe language has a three-way contrast among short, half-long, and long...
maintain a phonemiccontrast between plosive (or affricate) and fricative, the voiced ones alternate allophonically (i.e. without phonemiccontrast) between...
less open than the [æ] of English 'cat'. [a] is low central. Length is phonemic for vowels. A long vowel is marked by a pair of identical vowel letters...
1159/000261800, PMID 3505356, S2CID 19489369 Swadesh, Morris (1947), "The phonemic structure of Proto-Zapotec", International Journal of American Linguistics...
*y contrasted only after alveolars and labials: after palatals only *i occurred, and after velars only *y occurred. With the development of phonemic palatalized...
pronounce speech sounds, which includes speech articulation disorders and phonemic disorders, the latter referring to some sounds (phonemes) not being produced...
S2CID 197656511. Some Siouan languages have however developed a phonemiccontrast between the non-nasal sonorants w- and r- and the corresponding nasals...
glottal stop (ʔ) usually exists as a phoneme, and there tends to be no phonemiccontrast between [p] and [f] or [b] and [v]. In Cushitic, the Ethiopian Semitic...
widening (perhaps even lowering). Contrasts between two vowels on the basis of tenseness, and even phonemiccontrasts, are common in many languages, including...
[sʌŋ], producing a three-way phonemiccontrast sum – sun – sung /sʌm sʌn sʌŋ/ and supporting the analysis of the phonemic status of /ŋ/. In support of...
the neighboring countries. Throughout Bolivia the preservation of phonemiccontrast between /ʝ/ and the lateral /ʎ/ (i.e. the absence of yeísmo) is the...
point to a lack of phonemiccontrast between [i] and [u], and Shockley (2020) argues that backness is not phonemicallycontrastive in short vowels. The...
of sound change whereby a phonemiccontrast that used to involve a certain feature X evolves in such a way that the contrast is preserved, yet becomes...
syllable's position in the word. In word-initial syllables, there is a phonemiccontrast in vowel length. A long vowel has about 208% the length of a short...
is a long /zz/, ss's is a long /ss/, and t't is a long /tt/. The phonemiccontrast between geminate and single consonants is widespread in Italian, and...
term "phonological gap" is also used to refer to the absence of a phonemiccontrast in part of the phonological system. For example, Thai has several...
Islands, the Philippines and much of Andalusia. The maintenance of phonemiccontrast is called distinción in Spanish. In areas that do not distinguish...
to [aɪ, aʏ, aʊ], a phenomenon termed Polder Dutch. Therefore, the phonemiccontrast between /eː, øː, oː/ and /ɛi, œy, ɔu/ is still strongly maintained...
with either /ø/ or /œ/. In contrast with the mid vowels, there is no tense–lax contrast in close vowels. However, non-phonemic lax (near-close) [ɪ, ʏ, ʊ]...
distinction between long and short vowels characteristic of Thai. Shan has phonemiccontrasts among the tones of syllables. There are five to six tonemes in Shan...
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