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Questions tagged [phonemes]

The discrete and distinctive units constituting the internalized inventory of sounds of a language. A sequence of phonemes is the preverbal form of a word. Phonemes may be systematically distorted upon verbalization, resulting in an allophone. Phonemes and allophones are both "phones".

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Whats the average duration of English phonemes?

I found this paper on phoneme length in the Polish language, but I can't see to find anything like this for English. Polish Phoneme Length Paper: http://www.dsp.agh.edu.pl/_media/pl:ltc-001-ziolko.pdf
Jason
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How do you figure out the underlying sound of several allophones?

For example if I know that [s],[z], [dz] and [ez] are allophones. How do I determine the underlying phoneme sound?
Ishan
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Is there an effort to prove phonemes?

For 44 claimed phonemes, we need 44*43/2 = 946 minimal pairs. If we can't find even one of them, then it is possible to claim that English has 43 phonemes and not 44 due to complementary distribution (with a complicated rule). Hence I'm interested…
MCCCS
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Impact of native language on toddlers reproducing non-speech sounds

This happened when my son was 1.5 years old. He would play with my nephew who is the same age. One of their favorite game is to act like someone who is trying to park a car and moving backward. The cars here make a warning sound ( a repeating sound…
Suresh
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Phoneme or allophone in two variations of same word?

If the same word is pronounced two distinct ways with one sound different, say "tomato" and "to-mah-to", is the sound that differs a different phoneme?
susan weisser
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Is there a language-independent notation system that can compare the phonemes found in different languages?

I need to make a comparison of the phonemes commonly spoken in Standard Chinese and English to spot the differences. I tried to use some IPA charts, but then found in Convert audio recording of word to IPA representation that the IPA symbols are not…
Village
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Is there a British English language minimal pair for the schwa and the 'long schwa?'

I know that we can find phonemes by looking for minimal pairs. However, I cannot find a minimal pair for the schwa, on the one hand, and the vowel that usually appears on British English vowel charts with this symbol /3:/ Presumably there must be a…
Mariner
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Is there a sound that we make when speaking that is not resonant?

Is there a sound that we make when speaking that is not resonant? I just recorded myself humming a vowel sound, and when I play it back there seems to be a resonant sound, one defined by the movement of the vocal chords, and another sound of a…
user20416
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Why are there many different ways to pronounce a phoneme?

A phoneme may be pronounced in different ways, depending on its position in the utterance, and still remain the same phoneme. Why?
Alyssa
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Why are phonemic transcriptions necessary, when phonetic transcriptions are more detailed (and more helpful for language learners)?

Ian Roberts, Prof. of Linguistics, Univ. of Cambridge. The Wonders of Language (2017 1 ed). p. 27 Middle Be sure to get your terminology right: phonetics is the study of the speech sounds themselves; phonology is the study of how languages organise…
user5306
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Why's IPA constrainted by phonemic, not phonetic, contrastivity?

To try to understand phonetics vs. phonology, I already read What's the difference between phonetics and phonology?, Oxford Univ. Prof. John Coleman's page, ResearchGate, Univ. of Pennsylvania Linguistics, Quora, SUNY at Albany's summary. Please see…
user5306
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Why is there numerics in the phonemes?

I am new to Natural Language Processing and the first thing that I encountered is phoneme representation of a word. I am wondering how come "hello" gets converted to "HH AH0 L OW1"? From where does this numbers comes along with the representations…
Mohan Singh
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Do the acute-accent-e and grave-accent-e sounds exist in English?

The two sounds 'é' and 'è' are abundant in French. The sound 'ê' is also common enough. Suppose you're teaching the e accent aigu (é) or e accent grave to an English speaker (from any continent). You can correct them by mentioning that the schwa in…
Sam7919
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