Phoneme

What do you understand by the term PHONEME?
Illustrate your answer with examples

Definition of phoneme
phoneme is the basic unit of the sound system
eg: /p/

Characteristics of Phoneme
1) one syllable can be made up of many phonemes
Eg : cutter /cvt(schwa)/
for the word cutter, there are 2 syllables, each containing 2 phonemes.

2) many varieties of phonemes
Eg: /p/ is a phoneme but there are many different kinds of /p/ which is known as allophones.
depends on where /p/ appears in the syllable.