Phonology

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The study of how sounds are organized and used in human languages.

Phonemes: Basic unit of sound in language, and how they combine to form meaningful utterances.
Phonetics: The study of the physical properties of speech sounds.
Minimal pairs: A pair of words that differ by only one phoneme, used to illustrate the contrastive function of phonemes.
Allophones: Variants of a phoneme that occur in different phonetic contexts.
Syllables: Basic units of organization within words, consisting of one or more phonemes.
Prosody: The patterns of stress, pitch, and intonation that give speech its rhythm and melody.
Morphophonemics: The relationship between the phonemic and morphological aspects of a language.
Phonotactics: The rules for permissible sequences of sounds in a language.
Natural classes: Groupings of phonemes based on shared phonetic properties.
Optimality Theory: A framework for understanding how the grammar of a language constraints the possible outputs of phonological processes.
Generative Phonology: An approach to phonology that uses a set of formal rules to generate the phonetic output of a language.
Autosegmental Phonology: A model of phonology that represents the various aspects of phonological structure (such as stress, tone, and vowel length) as separate tiers that interact with each other.
Metrical Phonology: A theory of stress assignment in language that uses a hierarchical structure of strong and weak beats to account for the patterns of stress in words.
Feature Theory: A system of representing phonemes in terms of their distinctive features, such as voiced/voiceless, nasal/oral, and so on.
Computational modeling of phonology: Using computational tools and algorithms to analyze and simulate phonological processes in language.
Segmental Phonology: It deals with the study of segments or individual phonemes that make up language units.
Suprasegmental Phonology: It involves the study of prosody, which refers to the rhythmic and intonational features of language.
Tone Phonology: It studies the pitch contours of speech segments and words and their role in conveying meaning.
Prosodic Phonology: It encompasses the study of syllable, word, and phrase structure, as well as intonational aspects such as stress and tone.
Autosegmental Phonology: It is a phonological theory that divides phonological segments into several tiers or planes, which can interact with each other.
Nonlinear Phonology: It is a theory of phonological structure that departs from the traditional linear model by allowing for the representation of nonconsecutive sounds or segments.
Metrical Phonology: It is the study of the rhythmic structure of language, which is based on syllable weight and stress.
Dependency Phonology: It is a phonological theory that replaces the traditional notion of linear sequences with dependency structures between sounds.
Optimality Theory: This theory is based on the idea of constraints, used to explain the patterns in which a language's sounds are used.
Government Phonology: According to this theory, phonologies are based around the concept of the head, which governs other units within the phonological structure.
Cognitive Phonology: It is a theoretical approach to phonology based on cognitive psychology, which emphasizes the importance of the cognitive processes underlying the perception and production of sounds.
"Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages systematically organize their phones or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs."
"The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a particular language variety."
"At one time, the study of phonology related only to the study of the systems of phonemes in spoken languages."
"But may now relate to any linguistic analysis either."
"Sign languages have a phonological system equivalent to the system of sounds in spoken languages."
"The building blocks of signs are specifications for movement, location, and handshape."
"At first, a separate terminology was used for the study of sign phonology ('chereme' instead of 'phoneme', etc.)."
"But the concepts are now considered to apply universally to all human languages."