What is a phonetically similar segment?

Phonetically similar segments are two or more sounds which share phonetic features and are frequently found as variants of a single phonological unit in a language.

Most phonetically similar segments are adjacent to each other in a phone chart, and differ only slightly in one or two articulatory features.

Here is a table that gives examples of phonetically similar segments and the difference between the given segments.

Rensch 1991 29

Context for this page:

• Concept module: phonetically similar segment
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): P
• In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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