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Phonology

Phonology asks which sound differences distinguish words or forms. For ancient languages, spellings, transcriptions, loanwords, metre, sound change and related languages provide indirect evidence. Confidence differs sharply from case to case.

Phonology

What phonology describes

Phonetics describes how a sound is produced and heard. Phonology asks how a language organizes sounds into contrasts and patterns. A speaker can produce two audibly different sounds without treating them as two different word-building units. Conversely, a difference such as vowel length or pitch can distinguish words even when a borrowed alphabet writes it poorly. Written letters are evidence about speech, but they are not speech itself.

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Lessons

Sounds, letters and the IPASpeech sounds and the signs used to write them are different kinds of evidence.Phonemes and sound patternsDiscover which differences matter by comparing forms and their environments.Ancient pronunciationEvaluate what inscriptions, metre, loans and later traditions can establish.

A reading check

Worked question

A grammatical table prints two otherwise identical forms with different accent marks. Before deleting the accents, what should you test?

Show the analysis

Check whether the marks indicate a contrast in pronunciation or grammatical form, when they were added, and whether the editor or manuscript supplies them.