Phonology is the subfield of linguistics that studies the grammatical features and interactions of sounds, the core component that makes up words.
Phonology and phonetics are the two subfields of linguistics interested in sounds. While phonetics is interested in the physical properties of sounds (such as how they are produced, how they are differentiated etc.), phonology is interested in sounds within grammar, such as allophony (the predictable change of sounds within certain environments), stress, prominence, vowel harmony etc.
There are many theories that use different frameworks within contemporary (generative) phonology. The two main types of frameworks are rules-based frameworks (RBF) and constraint-based frameworks (CBF). RBF’s have been championed mostly by Chomsky and Halle’s seminal work The Sound Pattern of English, which was the first work to use rules to predict phonological alternations. Their style of formalization has mostly persisted since the work was first written, and many phonology papers still use RBF’s.
The most famous CBF is Optimality Theory (OT), which was created by Alan Prince and Paul Smolensky in 1991. OT uses constraints to model phonological changes, and more can be read from their work.
See also
Last revised on July 29, 2026 at 19:01:25. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.