Phonology Vocab

Phonology

The study of speech sounds and patterns in a language.

Phone

A single speech sound represented by one symbol.

Phoneme

A family of sounds that change meaning in a language (e.g., pin/bin).

Allophone

A variation of a phoneme that doesn’t change the meaning (e.g., top/stop).

Consonant

A sound made by interrupting or constricting airflow using articulatory muscles.

Consonant Cluster

Two or three consonants spoken together in a word (e.g., "st" in stop).

Vowel

A voiced sound made with an open vocal tract (e.g., /i/ in "eat").

Diphthong

A vowel sound that glides from one position to another (e.g., /aɪ/ in "ice").

Articulation

The movement of speech organs to produce sounds.

Coarticulation

How sounds influence each other during speech (e.g., "seen" vs. "ski").

Phonotactics

Rules for how sounds can be arranged in a language (e.g., "ng" can’t start words in English).

Morphophonemics

How sounds change when combined with morphemes (e.g., plural "cats" /s/ vs. "dogs" /z/).

Dialect

Variations of a language spoken by different regions or groups (e.g., "y’all" vs. "you guys").

Phonetic Transcription

Writing speech sounds using a consistent system like IPA.

Phonetics

The study of speech sounds, including articulation, acoustics, and perception.

Functional Articulation Disorder

A speech disorder with no known physical cause.

Organic Disorder

A speech disorder caused by a physical condition (e.g., hearing loss, dysarthria).

Apraxia of Speech

A disorder affecting speech coordination and sequencing, not caused by muscle weakness.

Dysarthria

A speech disorder due to muscle weakness or paralysis.

Intelligibility

How well someone’s speech is understood.

Phonetic Inventory

A list of all the speech sounds a child can produce.

Homonym

Words that sound the same due to phonological processes (e.g., "tea" and "key" both pronounced /ti/).

Homorganic Sounds

Sounds made in the same place of articulation (e.g., /t/, /d/, and /n/ at the alveolar ridge).

Idioms

Words pronounced differently than expected in a child’s phonological system.

Diadochokinesis (DDK)

The speed and accuracy of rapid speech movements (e.g., "pataka, pataka").

Stimulability

A person’s ability to imitate a speech sound after being shown how.

Prosody (Suprasegmentals)

Features like stress, intonation, and rhythm in speech.

Cognate

Pairs of consonants that only differ by voicing (e.g., /t/ and /d/).

Strident

Sounds with high-intensity noise (e.g., /s/, /z/, /f/).

Obstruent

Sounds with complete or partial airflow blockage (stops, fricatives, affricates).

Sonorant

Sounds with continuous airflow (vowels, nasals, liquids, glides).

Continuant

Sounds made with incomplete constriction of airflow (e.g., /s/, /z/, /w/).

Rhotic

Sounds related to /r/ (e.g., "red," "br," "er").