phonological analysis

[Birds]

dear all

I have an exam which is basically based on the phonological analysis

in fact I have a problem in differentiating between the phoneme and allophone !! what is the difference?

another thing is how to write a phonological rule?

I've studied five steps which are:

specify the problem
specify the context
examine the common features
determine the underlying sound
and finally form the rule

it is easy to write the steps but I couldn't apply them correctly

can you help me please!

 

[Birds]

Please :-(

 

[bds51]

Hello Birds,
Thankfully you don't have to be a linguist to be an effective reading or writing teacher and many aren't but understanding a few terms can enhance your abilities. A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound within a language that can change the meaning of a word e.g. let, lit, lot. These three words differ in meaning because of a difference in only one sound, and this difference is called phonemic. An allophone is a slightly different version of each phoneme e.g. the 't ' in Italy is pronounced like a quick d in North American English but the Brits would pronounce it like a t. These sound variations don't cause many problems but when they are reflected in spelling then there are problems e.g. Idaly vs Italy.

 

[Birds]

dear bds51,

thanks alot for this clarification.

it helped me so much. ;-)