Phonotactic

Part of speech: adjective

Definitions

1. The set of constraints or rules governing which sequences of sounds are permissible in the structure of a particular language
2. The system of linguistic rules that dictates which combinations of sounds can occur together in a given language
3. A framework of constraints that determines allowable sound sequences in the phonological structure of a language

Etymology: "Phonotactic" is built from two Greek elements: "phōnē", meaning sound or voice, and "taktikos", meaning relating to arranging or ordering, from "tassein", to arrange. Put together they describe the rules that decide which sounds may stand next to each other in a language. English, for example, allows the opening cluster "str" in "street" but never "tsr", and speakers know this without ever being taught it. The word is a modern technical coinage built from these classical parts, not a term used by the ancient Greeks, who had no concept of a phonotactic system as such. It entered English in the twentieth century as linguists began to describe sound patterns systematically, and it belongs to the same family as "tactic" in words like "syntactic", which governs word order in a sentence, and "phonology", the study of sound systems more broadly.