phone
basic unit of sound in speech
round-sharp distinction
alveolo-palatal initials of the Beijing dialect (/tɕ, tɕʰ, ɕ/, in pinyin j, q and x), that originated in a merger between velar initials (/k, kʰ, x/) and alveolar affricates (/ts, tsʰ, s/) before the front vowels /i/ and /y/
segment
smallest temporally discrete unit identifiable in speech
contextual variation
linguistic phonomenom used in phonology, sometimes transcribed in the orthography and grammar of some languages
ingressive sound
a sound made while inhaling by the nose or mouth
egressive sound
Phones that involve pushing air out through the body breathing cavities
occlusive consonant
consonant sound produced by blocking airflow in the vocal tract, but not necessarily in the nasal tract
vowel
sound in spoken language, articulated with an open vocal tract
diphthong
combination of two adjacent vowel sounds
continuant
type of speech sound
syllable
unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds
consonant
speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract
allophone
spoken sound
free variation
phonetic situation where multiple different pronunciations are possible in a given language without changing a word's meaning