Lautinventar

Lautinventar is a term used in linguistics to describe the set of distinct sounds that a language uses to distinguish words. It typically refers to the language’s phonemic inventory—the consonants and vowels whose contrasts matter for meaning. The Lautinventar is a theoretical construct: it lists the sounds that can create lexical or grammatical distinctions, while the actual spoken realizations may vary due to allophony and phonetic variation.

In practice, the Lautinventar is described through a phoneme chart that names each sound, often with information about place and manner of articulation, voicing, and other distinctive features. While the inventory focuses on contrastive sounds, the surface realization of these sounds can produce a larger set of allophones, which are predictable by the language’s phonological rules. Therefore, the surface phonetic repertoire may exceed the number of phonemes.

The Lautinventar is not fixed. It varies across dialects, sociolects, and historical stages, reflecting sound changes and contact with other languages. Describing an inventory typically involves eliciting minimal pairs to identify which sounds contrast, and documenting the phonotactics that govern permissible sound sequences within a variety.

In linguistic work, the Lautinventar serves as a foundation for phonology, historical linguistics, and language documentation. It is conceptually aligned with phoneme inventory in broader terms and is essential for understanding how a language distinguishes words and constructs meaning. See also: Phoneme, Phonology, Allophone, Minimal pair, Dialect, Phonotactics.