Linguistics & Grammar vocabulary · Phonetics and Phonology
Phonology
Meaning in linguistics & grammar, with examples
/fəˈnɒlədʒi/nounCore term
In linguistics & grammar, phonology means: The study of how a particular language organizes its sounds into a system: which sound differences change meaning, how sounds combine and how they affect each other.
In Turkish: sesbilim, fonoloji
How it is used
Often paired with phonetics in course titles. Phonetics asks what sounds are physically; phonology asks how they function in one language. You talk about the phonology of English, of Turkish, or of a learner's speech.
Example sentences
In English phonology, /p/ and /b/ are separate phonemes because pat and bat mean different things.
Vowel harmony is one of the key features of Turkish phonology.
Common collocations
English phonology
phonological rule
phonological awareness
segmental phonology
Related terms
phoneticsThe branch of linguistics that studies speech sounds as physical events: how the mouth and throat produce them, how they travel and how the ear perceives them.
phonemeThe smallest unit of sound that can change meaning in a particular language, such as /p/ and /b/, which make pin and bin different words in English.
allophoneOne of the different ways a single phoneme is pronounced in different positions, which native speakers usually hear as the same sound, like the /p/ in pin and in spin.
minimal pairTwo words that differ in only one sound in the same position, such as ship and sheep or fan and van, which shows that the two sounds are separate phonemes.
syllableA unit of pronunciation built around a vowel sound, often with consonants before or after it; 'banana' has three syllables: ba-na-na.
