toneme
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ton·eme
(tō′nēm)n.
Any of the phonemes of a tone language by which tone conveys differences in lexical meaning.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
toneme
(ˈtəʊniːm)n
(Linguistics) linguistics a phoneme that is distinguished from another phoneme only by its tone
[C20: from tone + -eme]
toˈnemic adj
Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014
ton•eme
(ˈtoʊ nim)n.
a phoneme in a tone language in which the contrastive feature is tone.
[1920–25]
to•ne′mic, adj.
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