Evolutionary Phonology is an approach to

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

and

historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # ...

, based on the idea that recurrent synchronic sound patterns, if not inherited from the mother tongue, are the result of recurrent sound changes, while rare patterns are the product of rare changes or a combination of independent changes.Blevins 2004:xi.

Notes

Bibliography

*Blevins, Juliette. 2004. ''Evolutionary phonology: The emergence of sound patterns''. Cambridge University Press. Historical linguistics Phonology {{phonology-stub