phonemecentered
Phonemecentered is a term used to describe an approach in linguistics that treats phonemes as the central units of analysis. In a phonemecentered framework, underlying representations, contrastive distributions, and phonological rules that manipulate phonemic inventories are primary, with surface phonetic realizations and transcription treated as secondary or derived.
Within this orientation, phonology is often viewed as the study of how a small set of abstract
In practice, phonemecentered methods influence how researchers describe languages, develop phonemic transcriptions, and construct phonotactic rules.
Critiques of phonemecentered analysis note that a strict focus on contrastive phonemes can obscure important phonetic
The term is descriptive and usage varies by linguistic tradition, programming context, and scholarly emphasis.