allofonët

Allofonët is the Albanian term used to refer to allophones, the different phonetic realizations of a single phoneme in a language. An allophone is one visible variant that a phoneme can take depending on context, without changing the word’s meaning. The study of allofonët falls under phonology, which examines how these variants are distributed and why they occur.

Key ideas around allofonët include the distinction between phonemes, the abstract units of sound that can distinguish meaning, and their surface realizations, the allofonët. In many languages, a phoneme has several allophones that appear in predictable environments, a situation known as complementary distribution. For example, in English the phoneme /p/ has an aspirated allophone [pʰ] as in "pin" and an unaspirated allophone [p] after an 's' as in "spin." These variants do not create a new word; they are all representations of the same underlying sound.

Other patterns involve free variation, where different allofonët can occur in the same environment without affecting meaning, often influenced by speaker, pace, or emphasis. Allophony can also arise from phonological processes such as assimilation, where nearby sounds influence each other, or from historical sound changes that leave behind systematic variants.

Terminology note: the concept of allophony describes how a language reconciles perceptual distinctiveness with articulatory ease. The set of all allofonët associated with a single phoneme is called its allophony. Understanding allofonët helps explain why speech sounds can vary without altering the words people intend to say.