Phonology terms

allophone

a physical segment of speech

coda

those consonants in a syllable that come after the nucleus

complementary distribution

the observation that two or more phonetically-similar allophones are never seen in the same environment

free variation

the observation that two or more phonetically-similar allophones can be exchanged for one another without changing the meaning of the word

minimal pair

a pair of words with different meanings whose pronunciations are the same except for having a different segment at one location

nucleus

the sonority peak of a syllable

onset

those consonants that occur before the nucleus in a syllable

phoneme

an abstract sound category in a language

phonotactics

rules or patterns of the sequences of sounds one can find in a language

rhyme

that part of a syllable containing the nucleus and coda (or just the nucleus, if there is no coda)

sonority

a property of speech sounds by which they can be ranked; used to determine or describe their role in syllable structures

syllable

a sequence of sounds with a single sonority peak