Which term denotes the basic unit of sound in a language?

Which term denotes the basic unit of sound in a language?

• A. Phoneme
• B. Morpheme
• C. Allophone
• D. Grapheme

Answer: (A)

Think of sound units as the building blocks of speech. The basic unit of sound in a language is the phoneme—the smallest unit that can change meaning. For instance, the difference between the words pat and bat comes from swapping the initial sound; those two sounds are distinct phonemes in English because they help distinguish meaning. It's helpful to distinguish the other terms: a morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning, not a sound, as in prefixes or suffixes like un-, -ed, or the word book. An allophone is a spoken variant of a phoneme that doesn’t change meaning, such as different pronunciations of the same phoneme in different contexts. A grapheme is the written representation of sounds, the letters you see in writing. So the term that denotes the basic unit of sound is phoneme.

Think of sound units as the building blocks of speech. The basic unit of sound in a language is the phoneme—the smallest unit that can change meaning. For instance, the difference between the words pat and bat comes from swapping the initial sound; those two sounds are distinct phonemes in English because they help distinguish meaning.

It's helpful to distinguish the other terms: a morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning, not a sound, as in prefixes or suffixes like un-, -ed, or the word book. An allophone is a spoken variant of a phoneme that doesn’t change meaning, such as different pronunciations of the same phoneme in different contexts. A grapheme is the written representation of sounds, the letters you see in writing. So the term that denotes the basic unit of sound is phoneme.