Phonemes and allophones: Put these descriptions in the correct columns.

  • a. are always phonetically similar
  • b. are not necessarily phonetically similar
  • c. the way in which sounds are stored in the minds of native speakers
  • d. the way in which sounds are actually pronounced
  • e. are in predictable and complementary distribution when they belong to the same phoneme
  • f. are "official members" of a language's sounds system (for example, there are about 44 of these in English)
  • g. change word meaning if they are changed
  • h. do not change word meaning if switched
  • i. are indicated with /slashes/
  • j. are indicated with [brackets]
  • k. are underlying mental representations of sounds
  • l. contrast with other sounds in the same language
  • m. are surface representations
  • n. are variants of a phoneme
  • o. are perceived to be different sounds by native speakers of a language; native speakers can easily hear the difference
  • p. are not perceived to be different sounds by native speakers of a language; native speakers cannot easily hear the difference
  • q. can be discovered using minimal pair tests
Phonemes Allophones
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