Phonological Development Definitions Phonology - study of linguistic rules governing the sound system of the language, including speech sounds, speech sound production, and the combination of sounds in meaningful utterances. Phonetics - specific branch that deals with individual speech sounds, their production, and their representation by written symbols.
Phonological rules Describe the sound system of a language.
Each spoken phone is classified as belonging to a particular phoneme according to its effect on meaning. Referred to as minimal pairs. Coarticulation - the simultaneous movement of the muscles and articulators to produce two different phones in connected speech. This movement modifies the production of adjacent phones. Adaptation - variation in the way in which articulators move and the extent to which vocal tract configuration changes shape according to preceding and following sounds.