1.Previous
3.Next

for how a sound is perceived in many languages, such that changing this phonetic feature can yield a different word (consider bat and pat in English); see Phoneme. Another example in English of a phonemic contrast would be the difference between leak and league; the minimal difference of voicing between [k] and [g] does lead to the two utterances being perceived as different words. On the other hand, an example that is not a phonemic contrast in English is the difference between and . In this case the minimal

1.Previous
3.Next