The Phonology of English sounds that sound the same and sounds that sound different in English Kuiper and Allan Chapter 5

Exercise Listen very carefully. (You might say these more than once.) –still –till –little –button Are the t sounds pronounced in exactly the same way in each word?

Same and different /t/s What is the same about the /t/ sounds? What is different? Do native speakers of English regard the differences as significant?

Phonemes Every language uses contrastive units called phonemes. When you speak the actual sounds that come out of your mouth are not phonemes. Phonemes are perceptual.

Allophones Phonemes have allophones. Allophones are ‘realisations’ of phonemes in sound. [ tH] is a realisation of /t/ in the word /tim/.

An analogy