The smallest unit of sound in a word is called a ...

• A. Phoneme
• B. Morpheme
• C. Grapheme
• D. Allophone

Answer: (A)

The smallest unit of sound that can change meaning in a word is a phoneme. Phonemes are the distinct sounds that languages use to differentiate words; for example, swapping the first sound in “pat” and “bat” changes the word, showing that /p/ and /b/ are different phonemes. This concept focuses on sound units, not on meaning or spelling.

Morphemes are different: they’re the smallest units that carry meaning (like “un-” or “happy”). Graphemes are the written symbols that represent sounds, such as letters or letter combos. Allophones are variations of the same phoneme that don’t change meaning (like the slight differences in pronunciation of a sound in different contexts).