Linguistic?

Question

When you are looking for allophones what is their linguistic environment?

Answer 1

It depends on the letter you're talking about.

The english T has 4 allophones:

T(h) (Aspirated)

T (unaspirated)

? (Glottal Stop)

r Alvelar Flap

The Aspirated T is all word-initial T's (ex. Take)

Unaspirated T is ONLY when preceeded by an S (ex. Stake)

The Glottal stop is at the end of the word (ex. But (when you don't stress the T))

The Flap is almost like an R sound as when you say "Butter" or "Better"

Answer 2

The linguistic environment is the other sounds around them. In English, it's usually just about the sounds before and after (and sometimes the stress pattern of the word). However, in other languages, other factors can affect them too - sounds farther away from the allophone, tones, stress, etc.