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I initially thought that it was because allophones happened in the physical world in place of phonemes, that couldn't, but that proved to be wrong when I read this:
"The segment [pʰ] is an allophonic variant of the phoneme /p/, reason why in a phonemic transcription the word pin is written as [pɪn] and not [pʰɪn]" - Gussenhoven & Jacobs (2011: 131)
The authors seem to insinuate [p] is not an allophone itself but something else and I don't get why.
A phoneme is an abstract entity deduced from the distribution of phones (actual sounds) in a language. It is typically transcribed with the symbol that represents the most common sound (allophone) of that phoneme, or rather the one that represents the "intersection" of the features the phoneme is considered to have in the present analysis. The second clause of the current Principles of the IPA reads:
The IPA is designed to be a set of symbols for representing all the possible sounds of the world's languages. The representation of these sounds uses a set of phonetic categories which describe how each sound is made. These categories define a number of natural classes of sounds that operate in phonological rules and historical sound changes. The symbols of the IPA are shorthand ways of indicating certain intersections of these categories. Thus [p] is a shorthand way of designating the intersection of the categories voiceless, bilabial, and plosive; [m] is the intersection of the categories voiced, bilabial, and nasal; and so on. The sounds that are represented by the symbols are primarily those that serve to distinguish one word from another in a language.
So each letter of the IPA represents not a rigidly defined set of articulatory configurations (because there are theoretically infinite shades of sounds between each category) but an abstract class of sounds, which may then be applied to represent an actual sound, or at least a narrower set of sounds, for more physically oriented purposes.
In English, [p] and [pʰ] are co-allophones of the phoneme /p/ (that is, no pair of words are found to be different just in [p] vs. [pʰ]). The letter 〈p〉 is chosen for the phonemic representation because aspiration or lack thereof is not distinctive in English, and therefore the categories "voiceless", "bilabial" and "plosive" are considered enough to identify these sounds, which make up a category of mutually non-distinctive sounds, i.e. a phoneme. And since writing e.g. "voiceless bilabial plosive + high front lax vowel + alveolar nasal" to phonemically represent the word pin each time takes considerable time and space, we write /pɪn/ as a shorthand for that.
The easiest way to think of allophones is as different variants of phonetically realizing the same underlying phoneme, so you are right in saying that "allophones happn in the physical world in place of phonemes". The text doesn't contradict this. /p/ is a phoneme with two allophonic variants: [p] and [pʰ] - [p] it itself an allophone of the phoneme /p/; your conclusion that this were not the case is incorrect. The point that probably gets you stuck is that term "allophonic variant" might suggest that only alternative realizations and not the underlying phone itself are considered, but this is not the case: "allophone" is to be understood to include the phone that corresponding to the underlying phoneme (i.e. the phone [p] is among the allophonic variants of the phoneme /p/).
The point that the authors are trying to make is that [pʰ] is more of a secondary varaint and the more basic realization is [p], which is why /p/ is declared to be the underlying phoneme rather than /pʰ/; what is the underlying form is usually determined by which of the possible realizations is the most frequent one, or the one that involves the least complexity of phonological rules. In English, the more common realization to /p/ happens to be [p], which is why we take /p/ and not /pʰ/ as the underyling phoneme, and consequently why < pin > is transcribed as [pɪn] and not as [pʰɪn]. But that [p] is the default realization while [pʰ] is a variant of it doesn't mean that [p] isn't an allophone of /p/ as well.
I suggest reading the text of Gussenhoven & Jacobs (2011: 131)
If you look up the pronunciation of a word in a dictionary, you will find it is normally given in phonemic transcription. In this type of transcription, an English word like pin is transcribed [pɪn], not [pʰɪn]. This is because the segment [pʰ] is an allophonic variant of the phoneme /p/, and as such has no place in a phonemic transcription. Clearly, the dictionary’s phonemic transcription defines a level of representation which is more abstract than the surface level.
Both [p] and [pʰ] are allophonic variants of /p/. [pʰ] is not a variant of [p], nor the converse. The original text is clear enough, as far as I can see.
The environment in which a phoneme occurs in, can affect the audible realisation of it. An allophone is a variation of a phoneme that has been conditioned by its environment. For example: /s/ is realised as [z] when in comes after a voiced sound. Take for example the word {Car}. In its plural form it is pronounced {carz} In the word {pits}, there's no [z] sound
Therefore:
S--> [s]/[-voice]__
[Z]/[+voice]__
Both allophones do not encroach on the work of the other. /s/ will always be [s] when it comes after a voiceless phoneme and /s/ will always be pronounced as [z] when it comes after voiced phonemes.
Because they occur in mutually exclusive environments, they are in complementary distribution and are therefore, allophones of the same phoneme. Much like Jack Spratt and his wife... He could eat no fat, and she could eat no lean, but together they lick the platter clean. 😁😁😁
I may be wrong, but I think it was an error. The right sentence is probably "...reason why in a phonemic transcription the word pin is written as /pɪn/ and not /pʰɪn/".
