SOME ALLOPHONES CAN BE IMPORTANT

Phonetics deals with "overt speech-behavior If. Phonemics deals with "categories" of speech-behavior in language.1 Not all forms of speech-behavior occur in all languages. Some occur in certain languages but not in others. Within each language some different speech acts are used contrastively to differentiate meaning; these differences are phonemic or distinctive. Some differences between speech acts do not differentiate meanings; these differences are phonetic or allophonic, that is, nondistinctive. The inventory of phonemes in every language is exhaustive. Phonetic differences, on the other hand, are inexhaustive. Between the level of phonetic difference and that of phonemic difference, there is that of allophonic difference. Phonetic differences account for all the different speech acts in a language. For example, the different amounts of friction in / s / as in the word cease. Allophonic differences account for the types of phonetic differences of a designated phoneme according to the environments in which they occur. For example, the different varieties of stops of each of the three voiceless stops in English. The voiceless stops can occur with aspiration as in p i l l , t i l l , and k i l l . They may occur unaspirated or with minimal aspiration2 as in s p i l l , s t i l l , and s k i l l . They may occuraspirated, unaspirated, or unreleased as in l ip , l i t , and l i c k . Al l these differences are phonetic. But the aspirated, unaspirated, and unreleased stops in p i l l , s p i l l , and l i p are assigned to /p/ . They are allophones of /p/. The aspirated, unaspirated, and unreleased stops in t i l l , s t i l l , and l i t are assigned to /t/. They are allophones of /t/. The aspirated, unaspirated, and mre-