Phonology is primarily concerned with which aspect?

• A. the physical properties of speech sounds as produced with the articulators.
• B. the smallest units of speech, including phones and features.
• C. speech sounds as transmitted through the air in the form of sound waves.
• D. the sound system of the language.

Answer: (D)

Phonology focuses on the sound system of a language—the abstract set of contrastive sounds (phonemes) and the rules that govern how they can be combined and how they appear in different contexts. It’s about how sounds function to distinguish meaning and how the language mentally organizes them, not about the physical production of sounds or their raw acoustic waveforms. The sound system includes patterns like which sounds can occur together, which sounds are treated as the same phoneme with different allophones, and how phonotactic constraints shape possible sequences. In contrast, articulatory properties (how the lips, tongue, and other parts move) and acoustic properties (the actual waves produced and transmitted) belong to other branches, so the best description is the organized sound system of the language.