allophonic

9.9

Relating to different versions of the same sound in a language

adjective
/ˌæləˈfɒnɪk/

Specialized

: alofónico

This allophonic variant occurs in several dialects spoken in the northern and eastern United States but not in other dialects spoken in the South and West.

Examples

Thus, even with identical phonemic inventories, there may be context-specific (allophonic) differences in pronunciations of particular words or syllables.

Academic text (2012)
Children must learn to control variation that is a socioindexical marker of talker identity and discourse register, and also variation that is an allophonic marker of prosodic position and interword segmental coordination.

Academic text (2012)
In some dialects, the allophonic variations can change the meaning of words subtly.
Linguists study the allophonic differences that arise in various accents of English.
Understanding allophonic changes helps language learners improve their pronunciation.

How Contrastive

contrastive

6.8

phonemic

Specialized

1 7.0

noncontrastive

Specialized

9.5

allophonic

Specialized

9.9

Surface Forms

allophonic positive

Morphology

allophonic = allophone (semi-transparent) = allo + phon + ic

The meaning is derived from 'allophone' with the suffix '-ic', indicating a relation to allophones, but requires knowledge of 'allophone'.

Etymology

The word allophonic comes from the Greek root allo- meaning 'other' and phonic meaning 'sound', as in the words phone and phonics. So allophonic describes an 'other' version of a sound, a different pronunciation of the same basic speech sound.