Which of the following words refers to the smallest unit of sound that is associated with a particular meaning?

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UGC NET Paper 2: English 1st Dec 2021 Shift 1
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  1. Phoneme
  2. Phonic substance
  3. Phonestheme
  4. Phonemoid

Answer (Detailed Solution Below)

Option 1 : Phoneme
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UGC NET Paper 1: Held on 21st August 2024 Shift 1
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50 Questions 100 Marks 60 Mins

Detailed Solution

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The correct answer is PhonemeKey Points

  • Phonemes are the meaningfully different sound units in a language (the smallest units of sound).
  • For example, ‘pat’ and ‘bat’ differ in their first phoneme: the “p” and “b”.
  • Vowels are also phonemes, so “pat” and “pet” differ by a phoneme, too.
  • When two words differ by a single phoneme they are known as a minimal pair.
  • The phonemes are the distinctive sound unit in a spoken language.

Therefore, Option 1 is the correct answer.

 Additional Information

  • Phonemes are the smallest meaningful unit of sound by which one can distinguish one word from another. 
  • A phoneme does not have any inherent meaning by itself, but when you put phonemes together, they can make words. 
  • The word "dog" has three phonemes ("d", "o", "g"). These phonemes are initially meaningless, but when put together they form a meaningful word "dog".
  • It is the sound system that is being represented by slash marks conventionally such as the phonemes of the word "cat" can be represented as /c/, /a/, /t/
  • So, the phonemes are the smallest unit in the sound system of a language that has meaning when combined together.
  • ​Hence, it can be concluded that phoneme refers to the smallest unit of sound that is associated with a particular meaning.

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