phonology

noun

1. (uncountable)The study of the way sounds function in languages, including accent, intonation, phonemes, stress, and syllable structure, and which sounds are distinctive units within a language; (countable) the way sounds function within a given language; a phonological system.

   “Prospectus of a new work, entitled Pantographia: Containing accurate copies of all the known alphabets in the world. Together with an English explanation of the peculiar force of each letter: To which will be added specimens of all well-authenticated oral languages, Forming a comprehensive Digest of phonology.”

   “The Achean, the ancient Malayu and other mixed phonologies possessing a considerable degree of harshness, were thus formed.”

   “The most interesting applications of the phonograph, however, are to the analysis of speech. […] [T]he point in which the proposed arrangements will be of most value is in the analysis of the inflections of speech, or the rapid variations of pitch which occur continually. This analysis is of the highest importance for phonology, as the inflections are undoubtedly among the principal characteristics of dialects.”

   “Crucially, the neat separateness of phonologies which my account seems to imply is an abstraction and does not mean that the phonologies represented different regional or social dialects.”

2. (broadly, uncountable)The study of the way components of signs function in a sign language, and which components are distinctive units within the language; (countable) the way components of signs function within a given sign language.

   “Sign language linguists have produced many volumes of description of the phonology and morphology of signs and the syntax of sign languages.”

   “The term ‘phonology’ may seem odd in the context of sign linguistics, since the word has as its root phon – the Greek word for ‘sound’. […] However, sign linguists now prefer the term phonology to emphasise that the same level of structure exists in sign language and spoken language, despite the differences in modality. The study of sign phonology began with the work of William Stokoe, the American founder of sign linguistics.”

   “[A]s with spoken languages, sign language phonologies are built from a repertoire of distinctive features that are assembled following principled combinatorial constraints. […] ASL [American Sign Language] linguistic properties / a. A phonology based on hand shape, orientation of the hands, the location and movement of the hands within the signing space, and contact of the hands with each other and the body.”