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a variant pronunciation of a phoneme, which can occur due to phonetic differences in specific contexts or environments within a language
What is an "allophone"?
An allophone is a variation of a phoneme that occurs in specific contexts but does not change the meaning of a word. Allophones are different ways a single phoneme can be pronounced based on surrounding sounds, stress, or position within a word. For example, the phoneme /t/ can be pronounced as the aspirated [tʰ] in "top" and as a glottal stop [ʔ] in some dialects of English in the word "button." Although these variations sound different, they are still recognized as the same phoneme in the language. Understanding allophones is important in phonetics and linguistics because it reveals how sounds are produced and perceived in different contexts without altering meaning.
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