The minimum phonological unit that can be opposed to another unit in contrast in meaning is called a phoneme.
A phoneme is the minimum phonological unit that, in a linguistic system, can be opposed to another unit in contrast of meaning. This means that the definition of a phoneme can be formulated according to the position that the phoneme occupies in a word.
Our experience of communication based on speech tells us that words are the result of the linking of different forms where their union takes on meaning. Those who study language and these forms used in speech to express ideas or feelings, in the attempt to abstract the sounds of our language, created the term phonemes , which consist of a set of symbols that are not linked to any particular sound since that are located in a more abstract analysis . For example, the phoneme /b/ represents the sound at the beginning of the term "good", but it is just a representation, in itself it has no sound.
For example: the phoneme /s/ can be opposed to the phoneme /r/ in the words house and face , since the message transmitted (meaning) varies in each one. The same happens with the phonemes /t/ and /v/ in lata and lava .
What is a phoneme
The phoneme can be described as the minimum unit of oral language , since it is the speech sounds that allow us to differentiate between the words of a language : /t/ and /l/ in pata y pala , /a/ and /o/ in sal and sol , /r/ and /m/ in toro and tome , etc.
The words mentioned have completely different meanings, although the pronunciation of each barely differs in the aforementioned sounds (phonemes).
Language and speech
It is important to note that although the phoneme belongs to the field of language , and the sound is included in the field of speech , both elements are closely related and condition the meaning of the terms; However, the phoneme is an element that serves for linguistic analysis, that is, it represents the abstraction of that sound to which it is linked.
The sounds in a word are known as allophones . The same phoneme can have different allophones, such as /g/ in cat and genius . There are times when letters match phonemes (like A and /a/ ) and other times when one letter sounds like more phonemes ( C can sound like /k/ in home and /z/ in brain ).
It is important to keep in mind that phonemes are not sounds in terms of a physical entity, but rather a formal abstraction or psychological imprint of speech sounds.
Phonemes are part of oral language.
Phonemes, allophones and phonetic notations
It is important to note that, according to an international convention , phonemes are written between slashes in order to be easily differentiable from graphemes or letters, which are usually represented between quotes () or square brackets ([]). This formality in the representation of phonemes was imposed by linguists gathered around the Prague School during the 20th century.
The set of phonemes that make up a language is limited and closed and has been the result of exhaustive research into the various contrasts of graphemes in words.
It is extremely important to keep in mind that a phoneme IS NOT A SOUND but rather an idealization of these that in turn allows various ways of being made. For example, /b/ is a Spanish phoneme that can represent two variants of sounds: one of them in which the lips do not close and a little air is exhaled so that the strings vibrate and pronounce words like tube, alba or curve , and the other the lips close to cut off the passage of air and release it abruptly to exclaim, for example, Good! These sounds are represented in phonetic notation as [ß] the first, and [b], the second, but both are allophones of the phoneme /b/.