LINGUIST 1A03 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Free Variation, Vocal Folds, Joule
5 Apr 2016
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No since vowel length in the word doesn"t change the meaning of the word. Yes it is because in most contrast where you use it, you have a meaning in the difference. Some variation is meaningful and some variations are not. If you have two sounds different from each other, if the difference between those 2 sounds lead to a different meaning in a given language, than those 2 sounds contrast in that language. Example: [f n] fan and [v n] van is a phonetic difference in voicing. The phonetic difference leads to a substantial difference in meaning. If two sounds are contrastive in a given language then they are considered two difference phonemes in that language. It"s a mental category of phonetically similar sounds and gives them the same label. There may be a phonetic variation within that phoneme, but because that variation is not meaningful, it is not contrastive, don"t treat those segments as different phonemes.
