What is the smallest unit of language?
A sentence
B phoneme
C morpheme
D word
E phrase
The correct answer and explanation is:
Correct Answer: B. Phoneme
Explanation (300 words):
The smallest unit of language is the phoneme. A phoneme is the smallest distinctive sound unit in a language that can distinguish one word from another. For example, in English, the words bat and pat differ by only one sound—/b/ and /p/—making these different phonemes.
Phonemes are not the same as letters. For instance, the letter “c” in “cat” and “city” represents two different phonemes: /k/ and /s/. English has about 44 phonemes, though the exact number varies depending on dialect.
To understand phonemes in the broader structure of language:
- Phoneme: smallest sound unit (e.g., /b/, /a/, /t/)
- Morpheme: smallest meaningful unit (e.g., “cat” or “un-” or “-ed”)
- Word: one or more morphemes (e.g., “cats” = “cat” + “-s”)
- Phrase: group of words (e.g., “the big cat”)
- Sentence: a complete thought (e.g., “The big cat ran fast.”)
While morphemes carry meaning, phonemes only represent sounds. You can’t attach meaning to a phoneme by itself, but changing a phoneme can completely change the meaning of a word.
For example:
- bit vs. bat – The difference is the middle phoneme /ɪ/ vs. /æ/.
- dog vs. log – The difference is the initial phoneme /d/ vs. /l/.
Understanding phonemes is essential in fields like phonology, linguistics, speech therapy, and language education, as they form the foundation for how we perceive and produce spoken language.
Thus, among the choices:
- Sentence, word, phrase, and morpheme are larger units of language.
- Only phoneme is the smallest unit of sound, making B the correct answer.