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phoneme

phoneme

3 7.2
A basic spoken sound in a language that changes the meaning of a word
  • noun
  • /ˈfoʊniːm/
  • Specialized
translation icon : fonema
  • In English, the word 'cat' is made up of three distinct phonemes: /k/, /æ/, and /t/.
  • phoneme-grapheme
  • phoneme segmentation
  • phoneme awareness

The word cat, for example, consists of three phonemes, CU, AA, and TA.

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Examples

  • Although there are phonemes that are unique to each language, the languages also share many phonemes.

    Academic text (2013)
  • The PSF measure assesses a student's ability to segment three- and four-phoneme words into their individual phonemes fluently.

    Academic text (2013)
  • Phoneme "P", plus phoneme "A", equals, "PA"

  • All I have to do is copy the sequence of phonemes and the message will get through.

  • Though he's been in America for more than 40 years, German phonemes pass in and out of his speech.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • The word cat, for example, consists of three phonemes, CU, AA, and TA.

  • Students with SSD scored lower than TL students on morphological awareness, phoneme awareness, word reading, and spelling.

    Academic text (2013)
  • Phonemes were scored incorrect if the child substituted or omitted a phoneme; however, distortions and additions were not scored as incorrect.

    Academic text (2011)
  • Linguists analyze the phoneme system of a language to understand its sound structure.

  • Each phoneme in a language can change the meaning of a word, such as 'pat' versus 'bat'.

How Large

text
355 1.0
sentence
499 1.0
phrase
  • Specialized
662 2.6
language unit
  • Specialized
6.5
word
1.0
morpheme
  • Specialized
1 7.7
phoneme
  • Specialized
3 7.2

Surface Forms

phoneme singular
phonemes plural

Morphology

phoneme = phon + eme

The parts 'phon-' and '-eme' are technical combining forms (not standalone words for most learners), so an average B1 learner cannot derive the meaning of 'phoneme' from its components.

Etymology

The word phoneme comes from the Greek root phonē meaning 'sound' or 'voice' and the ending -eme meaning 'unit'. So a phoneme is the smallest sound unit that can change a word, as when changing the first phoneme turns 'pat' into 'bat'.