phonology

1. (uncountable) The study of the way sounds function in languages, including accent, intonation, phonemes, stress, and syllable structure, and which sounds are distinctive units within a language; (countable) the way sounds function within a given language; a phonological system.Examples: "Prospectus of a new work, entitled Pantographia: Containing accurate copies of all the known alphabets in the world. Together with an English explanation of the peculiar force of each letter: To which will be added specimens of all well-authenticated oral languages, Forming a comprehensive Digest of phonology."; "The advantages of such a system [of a universal alphabet], both scientific and practical, were urged, the former in connection with the study of ethnology and philology, and the latter chiefly in connection with the great Protestant missionary enterprises of the present time. Professor [Karl Richard] Lepsius and Dr. Max Müller have devoted much time to the subject, founding their phonology on the physiological principles ably expounded by Dr. Johannes Müller, and published in the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin."; "The Achean, the ancient Malayu and other mixed phonologies possessing a considerable degree of harshness, were thus formed."Synonyms: orthoepy, soundloreuncountable

2. (by extension, uncountable) The study of the way components of signs function in a sign language, and which components are distinctive units within the language; (countable) the way components of signs function within a given sign language.Examples: "Sign language linguists have produced many volumes of description of the phonology and morphology of signs and the syntax of sign languages."; "The term ‘phonology’ may seem odd in the context of sign linguistics, since the word has as its root phon – the Greek word for ‘sound’. […] However, sign linguists now prefer the term phonology to emphasise that the same level of structure exists in sign language and spoken language, despite the differences in modality. The study of sign phonology began with the work of William Stokoe, the American founder of sign linguistics."; "[A]s with spoken languages, sign language phonologies are built from a repertoire of distinctive features that are assembled following principled combinatorial constraints. […] ASL [American Sign Language] linguistic properties / a. A phonology based on hand shape, orientation of the hands, the location and movement of the hands within the signing space, and contact of the hands with each other and the body."broadlyuncountable