fonemy

Fonemy is a term used in some linguistic theories to denote the smallest unit of sound that can differentiate meaning within a language, analogous to the conventional concept of a phoneme. In these theories, a fonemy is treated as a mental representation that underlies a particular contrast and is realized in speech by one or more phones.

From its coinage, fonemy combines elements of sound-related terminology with the -emy suffix modeled on phoneme, signaling its relationship to established phonological terminology. Some accounts distinguish fonemy from phone and phoneme: a fonemy may be the abstract category, while a phone is a concrete realization, and a phoneme may be used interchangeably with fonemy in others.

In practice, examples from English treat /p/ and /b/ as different fonemys, while in some languages a single phonemic category contains multiple allophonic realizations. Cross-linguistic discussion often uses fonemy to highlight distinctions that might be overlooked when relying solely on traditional terms.

Though proposed in scholarly discussions and used in a small body of cross-linguistic work, fonemy is not widely adopted, and many linguists continue to use the standard terms phoneme and phone. Further debate concerns whether fonemy adds practical clarity or introduces terminological confusion, particularly in computational modeling and language teaching. See also: phoneme, phone, allophone, phonology.