Word of the Day:
phonology
What It Means
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.
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.
Phonology in Context
“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...”
Did You Know?
From phono- (prefix denoting sound) + -logy (suffix denoting a branch of learning, or a study of a particular subject).
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: phonology (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “phonology.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/phonology. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.