Glossary: morphology and phonology

Of a speech sound, forming the nucleus of a syllable. In many languages vowels are the only syllabic sounds, but in some languages consonants, mainly sonorants, can also be used as syllabic sounds.

A unit of speech claimed to be relevant for the organization of words, a grouping of consonants and vowels into a C₀V₁C₀ constituent.

See weight.

Languages in which the duration of syllables shows relatively little variation, for instance because vowels are not likely to be reduced or because the onsets and codas of syllables are relatively uniform, e.g. Spanish or French (cf. stress-timed languages).

Having to do with language at a given point in time (cf. diachronic).

Deletion of a vowel in a medial syllable, especially in a fashion that affects alternating syllables. E.g. the medial vowel in English chocolate is subject to syncope.

Said to occur when a single inflected form corresponds to more than one set of morphosyntactic features.

The branch of linguistics that deals with phrase and sentence formation; the mental system that underlies phrase and sentence formation.

A language whose words usually contain more than one morpheme.

An electronic simulation of speech.