Further Description
When phonemes are in free variation, speakers are sometimes strongly aware of the fact (especially where such variation is only visible across a dialectal or sociolectal divide), and will note, for example, that tomato is pronounced differently in British and American English, or that either has two pronunciations which are fairly randomly distributed. However, only a very small proportion of English words show such variations. In the case of allophones, however, free variation is exceedingly common, and, along with differing intonation patterns, variation in allophony is the most important single feature in the characterization of regional accents.
Read more about this topic: Free Variation
Famous quotes containing the word description:
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else.”
—John Locke (16321704)
“An intentional object is given by a word or a phrase which gives a description under which.”
—Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (b. 1919)