"Phonology" is the branch of linguistics concerned with the articulatory and auditory domain of grammar—that is, with the theory of what John Langshaw Austin (1962) called phonetic acts. Its subject matter links with but is distinct from that of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. It covers the forms in which the sounds of words are kept in memory and the manner in which the motions of speech organs are shaped by grammar.

Unlike syntax, semantics, and pragmatics (but like closely related morphology), phonology has been largely ignored by philosophers. On the whole, philosophers consider the fact that natural languages are primarily spoken rather than written as of little interest for what Michael Dummett (1986) calls a "philosophical explanation" of language. This attitude stems largely from the mistaken but widely held view that spoken signs are arbitrary sounds whose individuating traits are those of noises. On that view, utterances contemplated apart...