What is the technical term for a variant of a phoneme that occurs in a specific phonetic context without changing the word’s meaning?

💡 Explanation:

An allophone is a phonetically distinct variant of a phoneme. Its occurrence is usually determined by the sound's position or phonetic environment, and substituting one allophone for another of the same phoneme does not change the meaning of the word. A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning, and phonotactics are the rules for combining phonemes.