Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated September 2025
Verified for the 2026 exam
Verified for the 2026 exam•Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated September 2025
Definition
Phonology refers to the study of the sound patterns and rules that govern language. It focuses on how sounds are organized and combined to form meaningful units in a particular language.
Related terms
Phoneme: A phoneme is the smallest unit of sound in a language that can change meaning. For example, changing the "p" sound in "pat" to a "b" sound changes the word's meaning.
Morphology: Morphology is the study of how words are formed by combining smaller meaningful units called morphemes. It explores word structure and how affixes (such as prefixes and suffixes) alter meaning.
Syntax refers to the rules governing sentence structure and word order in a language. It examines how words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.