ABSTRACT
General Phonetics, as described in Chapter 1, gives an account of the total resources of sound available to the human being who wishes to communicate by speech. In its essence it is thus independent of particular languages. Phonology gives an account of, among other things, the specific choices made by a particular speaker within this range of possibilities. In the first instance, therefore, phonology is concerned with a single language, or, to be more precise, a single variety of a language. General phonological theories can be built up only at one remove, i.e. on the basis of phonological facts established for particular languages. There are thus many fundamental differences between the two disciplines.
