Phonemes+and+Morphemes

phonemes, which are the smallest units of sound are considered the building blocks of human language. For example, p and b as in bet vs pet are phonemes. When phonemes are strung together as a unit they in turn comprise morphemes. Morphemes such as "cat" are composed of three phonemes, "k,a,t". Hence, phonemes must be arranged in a particular temporal order in order to form a morpheme, and phoneme perception is associated with the auditory area of the left temporal lobe. Morphemes in turn make up the smallest unit of meaningful sounds such as those used to signal relationships such as "er" as in "he is older than she." All languages have rules that govern the number of phonemes, their relationships to morphemes and how morphemes may be combined so as to produce meaningful sounds. Each phoneme is composed of multiple frequencies which are in turn processed in great detail once they are transmitted to the superior temporal lobe. The primary auditory area is tonotopically organized, such that related albeit differing auditory frequencies are analyzed by adjoining cell columns. It is the left temporal lobe which has been shown to be dominant for the perception of real words, word lists, numbers, syllables, the transitional elements of speech, as well as single phonemes, consonants, and consonant-vowel syllables.