What term describes a permitted variation in a phoneme usually determined by surroundings?

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

Answer: (A)

This is about how a single phoneme can be realized as different sounds depending on surrounding sounds. That variation is called an allophone. Allophones are context-driven realizations of the same phoneme and don’t change the meaning of a word. For example, in English, the /p/ sound can be aspirated [pʰ] at the start of a stressed syllable (as in “pin”) or unaspirated [p] after a closely following consonant (as in “spin”). These different pronunciations happen predictably based on context, but they’re still the same underlying phoneme.

The other terms refer to different ideas: a phoneme is the abstract sound unit that can distinguish words; a morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning; an allograph is a letter or combination of letters that represents a phoneme in writing.