variphonen.
/ˈvɛːrᵻfəʊn/, U.S. /ˈvɛrəˌfoʊn/ Linguistics.
One of two or more sounds used interchangeably by the same speaker in the same phonetic context.
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the mind > language > linguistics > study of speech sound > speech sound > [noun] > phoneme, allophone, etc.
phonea1866
phoneme1879
metaphone1930
diaphone1932
variphone1932
morphoneme1933
morphophoneme1934
microphoneme1935
stress phoneme1936
archiphoneme1937
allophone1938
diaphoneme1939
prosodeme1939
keneme1950
proto-phoneme1951
idiophoneme1955
morphon1964
hypophoneme1966
morphophone1967
1932 D. Jones in E. P. Hamp et al. Readings in Linguistics II (1966) 32 Variphones are found in some varieties of German, where p and b, ʃ and ʒ, and other corresponding voiced and voiceless consonants are apparently used indifferently.
1934 Yuen-Ren Chao in M. Joos Readings in Linguistics I (1966) 39/2 Bloomfield makes no explicit mention of free phonemes or variphones.
1934 Yuen-Ren Chao in M. Joos Readings in Linguistics I (1966) 39/2 Variphones are also phonemes, except that the choice of the exact shade of the sound used is determined by psychological and physiological factors other than those of phonetic environment.
1950 D. Jones Phoneme xxviii. 206 ŋg and ŋ form a variphone in the speech of Midland districts of England.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1986; most recently modified version published online December 2021).
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n.1932