What is phonological hierarchy?

Definition
	Phonological hierarchy is a ranking that organizes a stream of speech into levels of ascending size and complexity.
	Here are the levels of the phonological hierarchy:

	Units at one level of the hierarchy cluster together to form units of the next higher level. At each level, speech can be segmented into units that have similar kinds of phonetic features.

Source
	Rensch 1991

Context for this page:

Concept module: phonological hierarchy
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): P
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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