grapheme
a printed alphabet letter used in the representation of an allograph
phonetic alphabet
an alphabet that contains a separate letter for each individual sound in a language
allograph
differing letter sequences that represent the same phoneme
digraph
pair of letters that represent one sound; the letters may be the same or different
morpheme
the smallest unit of language capable of carrying meaning
free morpheme
a morpheme that can stand alone yet still carry meaning
bound morpheme
a morpheme that must be linked to another morpheme in order to convey meaning
phoneme
a speech sound capable of differentiating morphemes
minimal pair/contrast
a pair of words that vary by only one phoneme
allophone
variant production of a phoneme
complementary distribution
allophone production that is tied to a particular phonetic environment
free variation
refers to allophone production that is not tied to a particular phonetic environment
syllable
a basic unit of speech production and perception generally consisting of a segment of greatest acoustic energy (a peak, usually a vowel) and segments of lesser energy (troughs, usually consonants); a unit of speech consisting of an onset and/or a rhyme
onset
all consonants preceding a vowel in any syllable; not all syllables contain an onset
rhyme
a syllable segment consisting of an obligatory nucleus (usually a vowel) and optional coda
consonant cluster
two or three contiguous consonants in a syllable
nucleus
the part of a syllable with the greatest acoustic energy; usually, but not always, a vowel
coda
the consonants that follow a vowel in any syllable; not all syllables have a coda
syllabic consonant
a consonant that serves as the nucleus of a syllable
open syllable
a syllable with a vowel phoneme in the final position
closed syllable
a syllable with a consonant phoneme in the final position
word stress/lexical stress
the production of a syllable with increased force or muscular energy, resulting in a syllable that is perceived as being louder, longer in duration, and higher in pitch; also known as word accent
word class
also known as "part of speech
systematic phonemic transcription
phonemic transcription of an individual, used when the rules of the language are known; variant phoneme (i.e., allophone) production is not recorded; also referred to as broad transcription or phonemic transcription
systematic narrow transcription
allophonic transcription of an individual, used when the rules of the language are known; also referred to as narrow transcription or allophonic transcription
diacritic
a specialized phonetic symbol used in both systematic and impressionistic transcription to represent both allophone production as well as suprasegmental features of speech
impressionistic transcription
allophonic transcription of an unknown speaker or an unknown language