Phonology studies which aspects of language?

• A. Word meanings and usage.
• B. Sounds, relationships between sounds, and how sounds correspond to graphemes.
• C. Social uses of language in context (pragmatics).
• D. Sentence structure and word order.

Answer: (B)

Phonology focuses on the sound system of a language—the actual sounds, how those sounds relate to one another through patterns and rules, and how spoken sounds are represented in writing by graphemes. This includes understanding the inventory of sounds (like consonants and vowels), phoneme contrasts, and the rules that govern sound combinations. That’s why the description mentioning sounds, relationships between sounds, and how those sounds map to written symbols best captures what phonology studies. By contrast, word meanings and usage belong to semantics, social uses of language in context describe pragmatics, and sentence structure/word order relates to syntax.