Allophones
Allophones are variations of a single phoneme that occur in different contexts but do not change the meaning of a word. For example, the English phoneme /t/ can be pronounced differently in the words "top" and "stop." In "top," it is aspirated, while in "stop," it is unaspirated. These variations are influenced by surrounding sounds and the position of the phoneme within a word.
Understanding allophones is important in the study of phonetics and linguistics, as they illustrate how speech sounds can vary without altering meaning. Allophones help linguists analyze pronunciation patterns and improve language teaching methods by highlighting the subtleties of sound production in different languages.