PHONOLOGY

PHONOLOGY

Phonology is a branch of linguistic concerned with the systematic organization of sounds in languages. It has traditionally focused largely on the study of the system of phonemes in particular language (and therefore used to be also called phonemics, or phonematics), but it may also cover any linguistic analysis either at a level beneath the word (including syllable, onset and rime, articulatory gesture, articulatory features, mora, etc.) or at all levels of language where sound is considered to be structured for conveying linguistic meaning. Phonology also includes the study of equivalent organizational systems in sign languages.
The sound system involves :

• the actual pronunciation of words, which can be broken up into the smallest units of pronunciation, known as a segment or a phoneme. ( The words pat, chat and fat have different phonemes at the beginning, and so phonemes contrast with each other to produce different words.)
• prosody – pitch, loudness, tempo and rhythm – the ‘music’ of speech. (Other terms used are non-segmental phonology or supra-segmental phonology.)

We shall focus more on the former because there is very little information about historical prosody! 

(It might also be relevant to say here that we will distinguish phonetics from phonology. The former concentrates on the actual sound-making and could be thought of as being more akin to physics; the latter concentrates on how sounds are organised in individual languages. In order to do phonology, therefore, you will necessarily need to know at least some of the phonetics)