A phonetic variant of a phoneme in a particular language. The difference in pronunciation does not affect meaning. The different pronunciations of the same phoneme are determined by position in a word. eg /p/ in /pin/ and /spin/

A phonetic variant of a phoneme in a particular language. The difference in pronunciation does not affect meaning. The different pronunciations of the same phoneme are determined by position in a word. eg /p/ in /pin/ and /spin/

• A. Allophone
• B. Phone
• C. Content Validity
• D. Parataxis

Answer: (A)

Allophones are different pronunciations of the same phoneme that occur in different contexts and do not change a word’s meaning. The example shows the /p/ sound being realized as an aspirated [pʰ] in “pin” and as an unaspirated [p] in “spin.” These two pronunciations are just surface variants of the same underlying phoneme /p/ in English, conditioned by the surrounding sounds (their position in the word). Because switching between these pronunciations doesn’t produce a different word or change meaning, they’re classified as allophones of the same phoneme. A phone is any actual speech sound, which isn’t about abstract categories; the other terms relate to different concepts outside phonology.