Dictionary
auton'omous pho'neme
Ling.
a 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.Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.