A person whose mother tongue is one other than that spoken by the majority.
Used in a Sentence
allophones
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for allophones.
Editorial note
A phoneme is almost always a group of several phones - allophones - that native language speakers perceive as a single sound.
Examples18
Definitions3
Parts of speech1
Quick take
A person whose mother tongue is one other than that spoken by the majority.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of allophones gathered in one view.
(phonology) Any of two or more alternative pronunciations for a phoneme.
(Canada) A person whose mother tongue is neither English, French, nor (sometimes) an indigenous language.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for allophones.
noun
A person whose mother tongue is one other than that spoken by the majority.
noun
(phonology) Any of two or more alternative pronunciations for a phoneme.
noun
(Canada) A person whose mother tongue is neither English, French, nor (sometimes) an indigenous language.
Example sentences
A phoneme is almost always a group of several phones - allophones - that native language speakers perceive as a single sound.
Ok, that almost certainly means you can't hear the difference between the aspirated and unaspirated allophones.
The problem with þ is that it dates from a time when /ð/ vs /θ/ were allophones.
In the former case unvoiced consonants often have aspirated allophones as in English, and in the latter case unaspirated consonants often have voiced allophones especially between vowels, as in Chinese or Korean.
It also doesn't seem true that Allophones (born not speaking English or French) necessarily are using English the most as their 2nd language.
That's absolutely typical of native speakers: they can't hear the difference between allophones.
A word has unique phonemes (enclosed in forward slashes, //), but not necessarily unique sounds (allophones, enclosed in brackets, []).
In all honesty, this is probably just as messy as what happens in Korean, it's just that the Korean allophones are more foreign to us.
Every other difference is around which allophones get expressed preferentially.
For example, in English, the phoneme /t/ has allophones [t], [tʰ], [ɾ], or [ʔ] depending on context.
Besides ᄋ, all the variations are regular allophones.
Pairs of these are called allophones [1], and probably the easiest example to think of in English is all the many ways we pronounce /t/.
Quote examples
For instance, in Japanese, "L" and "R" are allophones, meaning native speakers consider the sounds to be the same.
What they got instead is "y" and "j" as allophones, which is partly why modern English pronunciations of most Biblical names are so weird.
First you start with a common language that has two allophones for /g/ which are ~ [g] and [ɣ], depending on context; in this case, "weg" was [weɣ].
"ciao" and "chow" are homophones, not allophones.
Proper noun examples
Allophones are different phonetic representations of the same phoneme found in complementary distribution.
Allophones using French most often at home is increasing over time.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use allophones in a sentence?
A phoneme is almost always a group of several phones - allophones - that native language speakers perceive as a single sound.
What does allophones mean?
A person whose mother tongue is one other than that spoken by the majority.
What part of speech is allophones?
allophones is commonly used as noun.