PHONEMES 5)
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"The smallest sound units that can change meaning in a language" (J.Z. YOUNG, 1974, p.297).
Basically, phonemes acquire meaning values only by combinations which each other, according to a specific set of rules: this is why a language may be considered as a system.
J.Z. YOUNG gives as examples the vowel i or the consonants b or t.
It should be noted that, in some languages, there are more phonemes than letters in the alphabet. An example are the French sounds, unknown in English, corresponding to the nasal sounds "an", "in", "on", "un", or vowels like "eu".
The same letter may represent different phonemes in different languages, as for example "u" in English, as compared with "u" in French or in Dutch, or "u" in German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.
Categories
- 1) General information
- 2) Methodology or model
- 3) Epistemology, ontology and semantics
- 4) Human sciences
- 5) Discipline oriented
Publisher
Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science(2020).
To cite this page, please use the following information:
Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (2020). Title of the entry. In Charles François (Ed.), International Encyclopedia of Systems and Cybernetics (2). Retrieved from www.systemspedia.org/[full/url]
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