What is the Difference Between Phoneme and Allophone?

The difference between phonemes and allophones lies in their representation and function in a language.

• Phoneme: A phoneme is a set of allophones or individual non-contrastive speech segments. It is the mental representation of the sound of a word, and it is the smallest unit that discerns meaning between sounds in any given language. For example, the English word "puff" has the phoneme /pʌf/.
• Allophone: An allophone is one of the linguistically non-significant variants of a phoneme. Allophones are usually relatively similar sounds that are in mutually exclusive or complementary distribution, meaning they can never be found in the same environment (i.e., position in the word and identity of adjacent phonemes). Allophones are the different ways a phoneme can be represented or the different ways a word is pronounced. For example, in English, the /t/ phoneme can be realized as [tʰ] in "tip" or [ʔ] in "stop".

In summary, a phoneme is the abstract representation of a sound in a language, while an allophone is the actual pronunciation of that sound, which can vary slightly depending on the context. Phonemes are used to discern meaning, whereas allophones are the specific realizations of phonemes in speech.

Comparative Table: Phoneme vs Allophone

Here is a table summarizing the differences between phonemes and allophones:

In summary, phonemes are the mental representations of the sounds of words, while allophones are the different ways a phoneme can be represented or pronounced. Phonemes are abstract units of sound used in linguistics, whereas allophones are smaller units of sound that do not contribute to sense-making. Phonemes can appear in different environments, but they are not contrastive, while allophones usually appear in complementary distribution.