Phonology

Phonology

Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds 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.

Terminology

• The word 'phonology' (as in 'phonology of English') can refer either to the field of study or to the phonological system of a given language.[3] This is one of the fundamental systems that a language is considered to comprise, like its syntax, its morphology and its vocabulary. The word phonology comes from Ancient Greek φωνή, phōnḗ, "voice, sound," and the suffix -logy (which is from Greek λόγος, lógos, "word, speech, subject of discussion").

THE THEORY OF PHONEME

• The smallest unit of the sounding speech is called a phoneme
• In the spoken language a much greater number of the various sounds is pronounced when we usually think. These sounds in every given language unit to form a comparatively small number of sound types, capable of differentiating words & their forms (capable of serving the purposes of human intercourse). We shall call them phonemes. (Scherba)
• The theory of phoneme was first expounded by Baudouin de Courtenay, professor of the Kazan University in the 1880s. In his treatise “On the Comparative Study of the Grammar of Slavonic Languages” he clearly defined the difference between a phoneme and a speech sound. He treated a phoneme as a semantically differentiating unit, and a speech sound as an anthropophonic unit of speech, not connected with any meaning. This differentiation proved to be highly fruitful and made it possible to establish mutual relations between the sound and the phoneme. Baudouin de Courtenay went on developing the theory of phoneme in his “Versuch einer Theorie der Phonetischen Alternationen” (1917) and other works.