phonotax

plural phonotaxes

1. countableuncommonuncountablehuman sciencesThe total sum of a language's phonological or phonotactic rules.

   On the level of word-shape, the phonotax of a language is a first determinant of its style, but the pattern of distribution within that frame is perhaps of equal importance.

   2009, Anders Stenström Beregond, “Phonotactic Preferences in the Root Repertories of "Qenya Lexicon" and "The Etymologies"”, in Arda Philology 2: Proceedings of the Second International Conference on J.R.R. Tolkien's Invented Languages, Omentielva Tatya, Antwerp, 8-11 August 2007, Arda Society, →ISBN, page 99

   2 more examples

   It is crucial for the phoneme structure of Finnish — traditionally /d/ has not been included in the Finnish phonotax, but it fulfils the criteria of a phoneme (Karlsson, 1983: 66-7).

   1990, Jarmo Lainio, “Sweden Finnish — development or deterioration?”, in Durk Gorter, editor, Fourth International Conference on Minority Languages: Western and Eastern European papers, Multilingual Matters, →ISBN, page 31

   Finally, names more or less adapted to Greenlandic phonotax will show a few deviations from the declination paradigms: e.g. Suulut ought to become Suulutip in ergative like t-stems use, but will become Suulup.

   2012, Karen Langgård, “Considerations about the impact of Danish on the morphology of Kalaallisut”, in Hitomi Otsuka, Cornelia Stroh, Aina Urdze, editors, More Morphologies: Contributions to the Festival of Languages, Bremen, 17 Sep to 7 Oct, 2009, Brockmeyer Verlag, →ISBN, page 10