Lecture 5: Phonetics and Phonology as different branches of Linguistics

Definition of Phonology:

Phonology (sometimes called phonemics or phonematics) is the study of how sounds are used in languages to convey meaning. It is concerned with differentiating functional (linguistic) sides of speech sounds from the physiological-acoustic (physic) sides. It studies the rules governing the structure, distribution, and sequencing of speech sounds and the shape of syllables. It deals with the sounds systems of a language by treating phoneme as the point of departure.

Phonetics deals with sounds and phonology deals with phonemes. Or else phonology deals with language sounds and phonetics deals with human speech sounds.

Two levels of phonology

Phonetics and phonology have two levels: segmental and suprasegmental. Segmental phonology studies phonemes realized in a various speech sound. So it may be called phonemics. Suprasegmental phonology (prosodics) studies the distinctive features realized in syllables, stress, and intonation.

The fundamental concept of phonemics is the phoneme which is the smallest meaningless unit of a language and which forms, distinguishes words and morphemes. The linguistic form and content are described by other branches of linguistics.

The Phonological typology deals with the allocation of phonological differential signs, defining their universality, study of the phonological structure of languages, classification of lan­guages based on their phonological features (e.g. tonic and atonic languages).

Phonological typology involves comparing languages according to the number or type of sound they contain. Linguists usually compare languages according to the number of different groups which participate in meaningful sound contrasts (i.e. phonemes) rather than the total number of actual speech sounds.

Phonological typology involves comparing languages according to the number or type of sound they contain. Linguists usually compare languages according to the number of different groups which participate in meaningful sound contrasts (i.e. phonemes) rather than the total number of actual speech sounds.