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Glite Dictionary
phonologist

phonologist

8.7
A person who studies how speech sounds work in a language
  • noun
  • /fəˈnɑlədʒɪst/
  • Specialized
translation icon : fonólogo
  • The university hired a phonologist to teach courses on sound systems in linguistics.

Examples

  • The phonologist analyzed the way sounds are organized in different languages.

  • The detailed scales of "tensional" effects claimed by generative metrists and metrical phonologists for their versificational constructs have also been proved erroneous.

    Academic text (1993)

  • - You're in need of a phonologist.

    Killing Lincoln (2013)

  • OK, So you guys have an advantage on the phonologists and the Amerindianists who were studying Yao money.

  • Read with a modern eye, it reveals that phonologists were exploring the value and use of phonological derivations, including both abstract representations and intermediate representations, in the late 1940s.

    Blog text (28)

  • As a phonologist, she focused on the patterns of speech sounds in her research.

How Expert

expert
3 3.5
phonologist
  • Specialized
8.7
linguist
  • Specialized
26 4.2
student
∞ 1.0
novice
46 3.4

Surface Forms

phonologist singular
phonologists plural

Morphology

phonologist = phonology (transparent) = phonology + ist

Formed by adding the agentive suffix '-ist' to 'phonology', yielding 'a person who studies phonology', which is a straightforward derivation.

Etymology

The word phonologist comes from the root phon- meaning 'sound' (the same root in phone and phonics) and the ending -logist meaning 'a person who studies'. So a phonologist studies the sounds used in language.