ABSTRACT
One aspect of the study of phonology is concerned with how languages organise this small number of units into a system which permits an infinite variety of utterances to be made. This system is called the phonological system or sound system of the language. The terms applied phonetics or functional phonetics are used to refer to the aspect of phonology, since it is really the application of phonetics to the process of communication in a particular language or languages. The technical name for a unit in a sound system is a phoneme. The way to understand the concept phoneme is to think of it in terms of phonological space. By phonological space is meant an area of tolerance within which all sounds would be classified as the same element for the sound system of a particular language. An account of phonological procedures, even an introductory one, is not complete without some mention of the role of phonology in generative grammars.
