Heng

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A name given to a hypothetical phoneme of English, realized as [h] when preceding a stressed vowel and [ŋ] elsewhere. (Stress must be specified: although [h] mostly occurs word-initially and [ŋ] mostly word-finally, both sounds can occur intervocally, as in ahead, and singing.) Tho a possible analysis, native speaker intuition does not quite agree with this. This concept thus serves as an example that complementary distribution does not necessarily imply that two phones should be considered allophones.

This article is part of a series on Phonetics and Phonology. Affricate * Allophone * Aspiration * Bilabial consonant * Buccal * Coronal consonant * Dental consonant * Fricative * Heng * Manner of articulation * Obligatory Contour Principle * Palatalization-split * Phoneme * Phoneme hole * Phonological feature * Rhotacism * Spirant * Stop * Syllable structure * Velar consonant * * Phonetic alphabets * Phonetic Segments