WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025
auton′omous pho′neme, [Ling.]
- Phonetics, Linguisticsa phoneme that is defined or determined by its contrast in sound with other phonemes, without reference to its role in morphology or any other level of linguistic analysis beyond the phonetic level. Also called taxonomic phoneme. Cf. systematic phoneme.
'autonomous phoneme' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):