adjective
- relating to or being allophones (variant sounds of the same phoneme that do not change word meaning)
Usage: linguistics; technical
Examples
- The aspirated and unaspirated versions of /p/ are allophonic variants in English.
- Students learned to identify allophonic differences that don’t affect meaning.
- The professor explained allophonic variation in different linguistic environments.
- These sounds are allophonic rather than phonemic in this language.
- Allophonic rules describe how phonemes change in specific contexts.
- The research focused on allophonic patterns across dialects.