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Question

Identify two consonant phonemes and their allophones. ( Specify the context of each allophone)

My answer is water. The sound /r/is not pronounced by the British, but it's pronounced the American, so /r/is allophone of the same phoneme.

Another word is (bottle). The sound/(t/ is pronounced as /r/by the American, but it's pronounced as /t/by the British, so (t, r) are allophones of the same phoneme /t/

Are my answers correct?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

You should post these kinds of questions in the Speech and Pronunciation forum.

I have already moved one of your posts there.

Would you like me to move this one as well?

CJ

AlpheccaStars · Answer

Maha Al442The sound/(t/ is pronounced as /r/by the Americans,

I'm American and I do not pronounce the /t/ in bottle as /r/. Hear the pronunciations in this dictionary entry.

http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bottle

CalifJim · Answer

Maha Al442Identify two consonant phonemes and their allophones. ( Specify the context of each allophone)

Phonemes are expressed, e.g., /t/. Phones, including allophones, are expressed, e.g., [t]. You can hear phones (and allophones). You cannot hear phonemes. A phoneme is an abstraction that represents all the allophones of a given sound.

Maha Al442 so /r/is allophone of the same phoneme

Thus, your notation above is wrong. /r/ can't be an allophone, but [r] can be, though you almost surely mean [?].

For the following discussion, see http://westonruter.github.io/ipa-chart/keyboard/

IPA has tapped 't'/flapped 'r' as [?] (common in American English), trilled 'r' as [r] (not present in most varieties of English), and approximant 'r' [?]. I believe you want the first of these.

Personally, I would not use "bottle" as the example. The following 'l' sound alters the 't' sound too much. The word 'patty' more clearly has [?]. (['p?æ.?i])
_________________

I think you may be concentrating too much on the differences between different varieties of the same language (American, British). You should be able to illustrate the point with just one variety. I'm not entirely sure, in fact, whether a comparison across different varieties is even a valid comparison.

The /t/ in American English is explained at
How to pronounce a 't' in American English and following posts.

By studying that material you may be able to show something about how the /t/ is expressed in various environments in American English.

For another example, you might point out that initial /p/ is [p?] while the /p/ in initial "sp" (spot, special, spoon) is [ p ]. (aspirated vs unaspirated 'p') (This difference occurs in both AmE and BrE.)

CJ

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