phoneme; smallest unit of speech sound
Tone colorsmāmámǎmàma
Meanings
1 sense · 3 examplesnoun
phoneme; the smallest unit of sound in speech
technicalA technical term in linguistics and phonology referring to the basic building blocks of spoken language that distinguish meaning. In Chinese, tones are also considered distinctive elements at the same level as consonants and vowels.
Hàn汉
yǔ语
pīn拼
yīn音
zhōng中
yǒu有
sān三
shí十
duō多
gè个
yīn音
sù素
。
There are more than thirty phonemes in Hanyu Pinyin.
/p//
hép
/b//
shì和
Yīng/
yǔb
zhōng/
liǎng是
gè英
bù语
tóng中
de两
yīn个
sù不
同
的
音
素
。
/p/ and /b/ are two distinct phonemes in English.
Show 1 more exampleShow fewer examples
“
mā妈
”
zhè这
ge个
zì字
yóu由
shēng声
mǔ母
mm
、
yùn韵
mǔ母
aa
hé和
shēng声
diào调
sān三
gè个
yīn音
sù素
zǔ组
chéng成
。
The character “妈” is composed of three phonemes: the initial m, the final a, and the tone.