Phone
Within
phonetics, a
phone is
*a speech sound or gesture considered as a physical event without regard to its place in the
phonology of a
language.
*a speech
segment that possesses distinct physical or perceptual properties.
*a particular occurrence of a speech segment.
*the basic unit revealed via phonetic speech analysis.
Phonetic symbology is set off within
brackets.
The word originates from
Greek φωνή, meaning "sound" and also "voice". For many if not most linguists, terms such as
phone and
pronunciation apply equally to oral and
sign language.
The term
phone is not as common as its phonological equivalent, the
phoneme. Depending on the author, terms such as
allophone and
speech sound may be used instead.
*
Phoneme, a set of phones that are cognitively equivalent (the "same" sound or element of sign).
*
Allophone, one phone of the many that constitute a phoneme.
*
List of phonetics topics
