Phonology is the study of sound systems, and unlike phonetics is concerned with underlying structures and discrete items. Phonology sees the introduction of our first "-eme," of which there will come many: The phoneme! A phoneme is a meaningful sound in a language, and is distinct from a phone in that there is a finite number of phonemes in any given language, and phonemes exist only within the construct of a language.
A major part of the description of a language is the phonological analysis, in which a linguist attempts to figure out the pattern beneath the sounds of a language to come up with the "phonemic inventory," the set of all meaningful sounds. This can be complicated by the fact that phonemes may be pronounced differently in different contexts, a phenomenon known as allophony. Each pronunciation of a phoneme conditioned by a particular set of circumstances is called an allophone.
For instance, Japanese clearly contains the phone [ɕ]. However, an analysis of the phonology shows that [ɕ] can never be followed by [j] (a "y" sound) and that [s] can never be followed by [i]. In fact, [ɕ] is an allophone of the phoneme /s/ (It's worth noting at this point that phones are written in square brackets [] and phonemes in slashes //) before /j/ or /i/. Therefore, we'd say that Japanese has the single phoneme /s/ with at least the two allophones of [s] and [ɕ], which assimilates to the frontness of the vowel or glide after it. That's phonology.
It's worth noting at this point that the graphic representation of a phoneme is somewhat arbitrary. A phoneme exists only as it is realized, and it may not always be apparent what the "typical" or "average" pronunciation of a phoneme is. In general, the notation used tends to chosen based on the most common pronunciation, the most graphically simple symbol, or like the value in prior historic forms.
The other component of phonology is phonotactics, or the acceptable juxtapositions of sounds. For almost every language, the concept of a syllable is key as a building block of words (though the North American Nuxalk language is a notable exception, with such mouthfuls as [xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ]. Better men than me have thrown up trying to say that one.) It's highly recommended that you start by deciding upon syllable structure.
Syllables are centered around a nucleus, which is generally a vowel for the simple mechanical reason that it's easier to transition between sounds if your mouth is allowed to open in the middle. Other nuclei are acceptable, however, with nasals, approximants, or even fricatives acting as the central component in a syllable. Depending on your dialect of English, you may pronounce the second syllables of button and bottle with no vowel at all. Or a syllable nucleus may contain a transition between several vowels sounds, called a diphthong or a triphthong.
On the edges of the nucleus are the onset (consonants at the beginning) and coda (consonants at the end). Cross-linguistically, onsets tend to be more complex than codas. Languages that allow more complexity in the coda than in the onset don't exist to my knowledge, and languages with heavily restricted codas or no codas at all are fairly common. Both codas and onsets have a tendency to follow the sonority heirarchy, the guideline that more "sonorous" or vowel-like consonants are allowed closer to the nucleus. This generally means that approximants are closest to vowels, followed by nasals, then obstruents (stops and fricatives). Any of these steps may be skipped, but it is very uncommon across all languages to see a stop between the nucleus and an approximant, for instance.
There may be other phonotactic rules that take place across full words. It's common for there to be separate rules for what may come at the end of a word. In Spanish, only a few consonants can finish a word, while in Arabic the end of a word is the only place that a coda may contain two consonants (not altogether very common - ask me sometime why Arabic phonotactics are so weird.) There can also be long distance effects like harmony, by which sounds (usually vowels) assimilate across multiple syllables or entire words. Lastly, there is the mess of prosody, accent, and word tone, which deserves a whole other post and then some.
When it comes to conlanging, figuring out your phonology is certainly key. It can be the first step for many conlangers. It's also one of the biggest steps for aesthetics to play a major role. Start by listening to other languages, exploring new and unusual sounds, and deciding what you like before you settle upon a phonology. There's also much more to phonology than explained in this post - more to come.
For instance, Japanese clearly contains the phone [ɕ]. However, an analysis of the phonology shows that [ɕ] can never be followed by [j] (a "y" sound) and that [s] can never be followed by [i]. In fact, [ɕ] is an allophone of the phoneme /s/ (It's worth noting at this point that phones are written in square brackets [] and phonemes in slashes //) before /j/ or /i/. Therefore, we'd say that Japanese has the single phoneme /s/ with at least the two allophones of [s] and [ɕ], which assimilates to the frontness of the vowel or glide after it. That's phonology.
It's worth noting at this point that the graphic representation of a phoneme is somewhat arbitrary. A phoneme exists only as it is realized, and it may not always be apparent what the "typical" or "average" pronunciation of a phoneme is. In general, the notation used tends to chosen based on the most common pronunciation, the most graphically simple symbol, or like the value in prior historic forms.
The other component of phonology is phonotactics, or the acceptable juxtapositions of sounds. For almost every language, the concept of a syllable is key as a building block of words (though the North American Nuxalk language is a notable exception, with such mouthfuls as [xɬpʼχʷɬtʰɬpʰɬːskʷʰt͡sʼ]. Better men than me have thrown up trying to say that one.) It's highly recommended that you start by deciding upon syllable structure.
Syllables are centered around a nucleus, which is generally a vowel for the simple mechanical reason that it's easier to transition between sounds if your mouth is allowed to open in the middle. Other nuclei are acceptable, however, with nasals, approximants, or even fricatives acting as the central component in a syllable. Depending on your dialect of English, you may pronounce the second syllables of button and bottle with no vowel at all. Or a syllable nucleus may contain a transition between several vowels sounds, called a diphthong or a triphthong.
On the edges of the nucleus are the onset (consonants at the beginning) and coda (consonants at the end). Cross-linguistically, onsets tend to be more complex than codas. Languages that allow more complexity in the coda than in the onset don't exist to my knowledge, and languages with heavily restricted codas or no codas at all are fairly common. Both codas and onsets have a tendency to follow the sonority heirarchy, the guideline that more "sonorous" or vowel-like consonants are allowed closer to the nucleus. This generally means that approximants are closest to vowels, followed by nasals, then obstruents (stops and fricatives). Any of these steps may be skipped, but it is very uncommon across all languages to see a stop between the nucleus and an approximant, for instance.
There may be other phonotactic rules that take place across full words. It's common for there to be separate rules for what may come at the end of a word. In Spanish, only a few consonants can finish a word, while in Arabic the end of a word is the only place that a coda may contain two consonants (not altogether very common - ask me sometime why Arabic phonotactics are so weird.) There can also be long distance effects like harmony, by which sounds (usually vowels) assimilate across multiple syllables or entire words. Lastly, there is the mess of prosody, accent, and word tone, which deserves a whole other post and then some.
When it comes to conlanging, figuring out your phonology is certainly key. It can be the first step for many conlangers. It's also one of the biggest steps for aesthetics to play a major role. Start by listening to other languages, exploring new and unusual sounds, and deciding what you like before you settle upon a phonology. There's also much more to phonology than explained in this post - more to come.
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