Allophone

Context-dependent pronunciations of one phoneme that speakers hear as the same sound without noticing.

Core Principles & Analysis

• English /t/ surfaces aspirated in "top", flapped in "butter", and unreleased in "cat" — one phoneme, three allophones.
• Allophones typically live in complementary distribution: each variant owns its context.
• What is allophonic in one language can be phonemic in another, which is why accents are hard to shed.