Allophone - Examples in English Vs. Other Languages

Examples in English Vs. Other Languages

For example, as in pin and as in spin are allophones for the phoneme /p/ in the English language because they cannot distinguish words (in fact, they occur in complementary distribution). English speakers treat them as the same sound, but they are different: the first is aspirated and the second is unaspirated (plain). Plain also occurs as the p in cap, or the second p in paper . Chinese languages treat these two phones differently; for example in Mandarin, (written b in Pinyin) and (written p) contrast phonemically. Many Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindi-Urdu, also write the two phones differently and treat them as completely distinct phonemes: is written as 'प' (or 'پ'), while is written 'फ' (or 'پھ') and so on.

There are many other allophonic processes in English, like lack of plosion, nasal plosion, partial devoicing of sonorants, complete devoicing of sonorants, partial devoicing of obstruents, lengthening and shortening vowels, and retraction.

• Aspiration – strong explosion of breath. In English a voiceless plosive that is p, t or k is aspirated whenever it stands as the only consonant at the beginning of the stressed syllable or of the first, stressed or unstressed, syllable in a word.
• Nasal plosion – In English a plosive (/p, t, k, b, d, ɡ/) has nasal plosion when it is followed by a nasal, inside a word or across word boundary.
• Partial devoicing of sonorants – In English sonorants (/j, w, l, r, m, n, ŋ/) are partially devoiced when they follow a voiceless sound within the same syllable.
• Complete devoicing of sonorants – In English a sonorant is completely devoiced when it follows an aspirated plosive (/p, t, k/).
• Partial devoicing of obstruents – In English, a voiced obstruent is partially devoiced next to a pause or next to a voiceless sound, inside a word or across its boundary.
• Retraction – in English /t, d, n, l/ are retracted before /r/.

Because the choice of allophone is seldom under conscious control, people may not realize they exist. English speakers may be unaware of the differences among six allophones of the phoneme /t/, namely unreleased as in cat, aspirated as in top, glottalized as in button, flapped as in American English water, nasalized flapped as in winter, and none of the above as in stop. However, they may become aware of the differences if, for example, they contrast the pronunciations of the following words:

• Night rate: unreleased (without word space between . and ɹ)
• Nitrate: aspirated or retracted

If a flame is held before the lips while these words are spoken, it flickers more during aspirated nitrate than during unaspirated night rate. The difference can also be felt by holding the hand in front of the lips. For a Mandarin speaker, to whom /t/ and /tʰ/ are separate phonemes, the English distinction is much more obvious than it is to the English speaker who has learned since childhood to ignore it.

Allophones of English /l/ may be noticed if the 'light' of leaf is contrasted with the 'dark' of feel . Again, this difference is much more obvious to a Turkish speaker, for whom /l/ and /ɫ/ are separate phonemes, than to an English speaker, for whom they are allophones of a single phoneme.