1. The set of rules governing which sounds can occur together and in what order in a language or dialect.
Usage: linguistics; typically used in singular or plural form; often treated as a mass noun

Examples

• English phonotactics does not allow words to begin with the consonant cluster 'ng'.
• The phonotactics of Spanish differ from those of English in several important ways.
• Linguists study phonotactics to understand how languages organize their sound systems.
• Children learn the phonotactics of their native language during early language acquisition.
• The phonotactics of Japanese restrict which consonants can appear at the end of syllables.