This time we’ll move our attention towards another important topic related to phonology i.e. allophone. It may seem strange to a normal English speaker because the person may not be aware of the allophones, he or she is using them in routine conversation.
It is quite difficult to recognize allophones for a layman as they all may sound the same apparently. Let us look at it by a simple example. The consonant “t” may have more than one variation in its speech sound when pronounced in different words. Similarly, the letter “r” also has many variants of speech sound associated with it. Other than these two mentioned letters, this behavior is observed in many other English alphabets also.
Firstly, you must know that what is a phoneme. In phonetics, a phoneme is a discrete sound that separates one word from the other in a language and belongs to that specific word only. It is basically the variations in a phoneme that is termed allophones. Think of your mind as a storage space in which the phonemes i.e. the speech sounds already exist.
All phonetically similar speech sounds are kept in a single phoneme category in your mind’s storage space. It is not compulsory that the sounds stored in one category should be the same. Many variants can be stored in your mind for a single phoneme. These variations of sounds are allophones.
What Are Allophones in English?
In simple words, the phonetic variations of a phoneme category are called allophones. The allophones only differ a bit in speech sounds however the meaning of the word remains same. All variations of a sound are allophones as far as that word’s meaning remains same.
Generally, the allophones show two types of behaviors. A free variation is shown by some allophones. These are called free-variation allophones. It means that you cannot predict which variant appears in this environment. You can select one variant from all based on your preference. It is independent of the phonetic environment.
Other are complementary allophones. These are scenarios in which allophones are dependent on the phonetic environment in which the phoneme exists. You can’t select your personal preference here. Specific variants should be chosen with respect to the context in which you are using the allophone. They are predictable in their usage.
Examples of Allophones
Looking at some examples of allophones used in English language will make you more clear about allophones.
- Wool : Love
The letter ‘l’ gives two different speech sounds when we pronounce the words love and wool. These are two different allophones of phoneme category of /l/. The letter ‘l’ is alveolar lateral approximant. It has a voiceless and syllabic variant. Both belong to the same phoneme category.
- Spin : Pin
Here the letter ‘p’ makes different sounds in both words mentioned above. In the later one, an aspirated sound of the letter p is created. The airflow is blocked at the lips for a short time and then released with a strong explosion of breath that is called aspirated sound.
Therefore, a faint sound like ‘ph’ is produced at the beginning stage while pronouncing the word pin. However, the word spin has another variant of the phoneme /p/. You can also note it by the movement of vocal organs like the tongue, lips, etc. while pronouncing these words.
- Steal : Tar
The letter ‘t’ exhibits two different allophones in these two words. In later word, the phoneme /t/ is pronounced with a more forceful and compact manner than the former one.