1. S. M. Joshi College, Hadapsar, Pune-28.
Phonemes
By - Prof. Jare M. R.
Head, Dept. of English,
S. M. Joshi College, Hadapsar, Pune-28.

2. Phonemes A limited no. of distinctive sound units
English phonemes
Def. -
“The smallest contrastive linguistic unit which may bring about a change of meaning” – Daniel Jones
“The phoneme is the minimal unit of distinctive sound-feature” – Bloomfield
Phonemes can be found by minimal pairs. Two words that differ in only one sound are called a minimal pair
Pet, bet, get, set, net, let /p, b, g, s, n, l/
Hat, hit, heat, hot, heart /æ, I, i:, o, a:/

3. Voiced and voiceless
Those speech sounds for which the vocal cords do not vibrate, are called voiceless sounds e.g. /p,t,k/
The speech sounds for which the vocal cords vibrate are called voiced sounds e.g. /b,d,g/
All the vowel sounds are voiced speech sounds

4. Allophones
Each phoneme may have a number of variants, these variants are called allophones
Allophones of a phoneme are not significant from meaning point of view
Allophones are the different phonetic realizations
E.g. /ph, th, kh /
Central /k/ in ‘calm’, retracted /k/ in ‘cool’, and fronted /k/ in ‘keel’
Clear /l/ and dark /l/
Allophones are phonetic variations.

5. Syllabic consonants Syllable is made by one or more phonemes
Vowel is at the centre of the syllable e.g. dog, bad
Syllable formed without a vowel is called syllabic consonant e.g. /n/, /l/ cotton, mutton, battle, little etc.

6. Syllable structure
Syllable structure is represented by the “cvc” formula
V = a 7. cccvc = street
Vc = us 8. cccvcc = strange
Cv = sea cccvccc = strands
Cvc = boss 10. vcccc = ancles
Ccv = play 11. cvcccc = texts
Cccv = straw 12. ccvcccc = twelfths

7. Tonic syllable
Tonic syllable is the last prominent syllable in the tone unit where the tone change begin. Tone unit is a sequence of accented syllables, one or more of which are prominent. Facts on Tone unit & Tonic Syllable: Each tone unit contain only one tonic syllable.
Each tone unit carries one change of tone.
We mark Tone unit boundaries by placing a " rectangle " at the beginning of the Tone unit.
Tonic syllables must have a high degree of prominence.
Tonic syllables are syllables which carries a tone and also a type of stress.
Tonic syllables are also known as nucleus.
Prominence is extra emphasis given to accented syllables by means of key, volume and duration.
Unemphatic : He is reading a novel. (not a drama)
Emphatic : This is my book. (no doubt about it)
This is my book. (it is mine only, not of any other person)

8. Tone groups A unit of an intonation pattern, having its own nucleus
may contain a single word, a phrase, a clause or a sentence.
Longer sentences are usually divided into tone groups
Division of groups corresponds to grammatical division of clauses and phrases.
Examples :
̀When he came, / - / I ̀asked him to ̀wait.
̀If you study, / - / you will get success.
̀The ̀boy studied hard / - / but he ̀failed

9. Thank you