What is the term for the smallest meaningful unit of sound in a language?

What is the term for the smallest meaningful unit of sound in a language?

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

Answer: (A)

The key idea here is how sounds function to distinguish words in a language. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can change meaning; different phonemes create different words. For example, swapping the sound /p/ for /b/ in "pat" and "bat" changes the word entirely, showing that these distinct sound units are phonemes. The actual spoken realizations of a phoneme—like an aspirated vs. unaspirated /t/—are called allophones and don’t change meaning. Morphemes are the smallest units with semantic content (like "un-", "happy", or "-ed"), and syllables are larger units that structure pronunciation. So the term that fits the description is phoneme.

The key idea here is how sounds function to distinguish words in a language. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound that can change meaning; different phonemes create different words. For example, swapping the sound /p/ for /b/ in "pat" and "bat" changes the word entirely, showing that these distinct sound units are phonemes. The actual spoken realizations of a phoneme—like an aspirated vs. unaspirated /t/—are called allophones and don’t change meaning. Morphemes are the smallest units with semantic content (like "un-", "happy", or "-ed"), and syllables are larger units that structure pronunciation. So the term that fits the description is phoneme.