The Phonology/Phonetics Interface

A textbook for advanced students that goes beyond basic phonetics and phonology to investigate their interaction.

Is speech in the mouth or in the brain? Do we hear with our ears or our minds? The answer is: both. The sounds of language are both physical objects and cognitive constructs. The physical aspects of speech are the province of phonetics: sound waves that are produced by the movement of articulators and received by the ear. Phonology, by contrast, studies cognitive aspects: systematic patterns in the ways that languages combine sounds to create meaning. Many books look at phonology and phonetics as separate disciplines. This book looks at the interaction between the two.Elizabeth Zsiga is Professor and Chair in the Linguistics Department at Georgetown University and the author of The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology.