Glossary: morphology and phonology

A secondary articulation in which the root of the tongue is drawn back so that the pharynx is narrowed, as in some so-called emphatic consonants in Arabic.

The lower part of the throat.

The manner of vibration of the vocal folds (modal voice, breathy voice, creaky voice).

In phonetics, used as another term for 'sound'.

A mental integration of the different physical properties of the sounds used in a language, abstracting away from specific phonetic properties which are due to the context where the sound appears.

Accounting for phonetic variability by writing rules that show the relationship between abstract phonological representations and cross-linguistic, dialectal, or individual variants.

The study of human speech sounds. Often subdivided into articulatory phonetics (the study of how human speech sounds are made) and acoustic phonetics (the study of the acoustic properties of those sounds).

A statement of a phonological phenomenon in terms of an input (the sound that is affected), the output (the changes that are made) and the environment in which the change occurs. An example is [-son] --> [-voice] / __ [-voice]. This rule makes any obstruent voiceless before another voiceless sound (the environment).

A word that behaves as a unit for certain phonological processes, including stress assignment.

The study of the sound systems found in human languages.