Phonotactics specifies which combinations of sound units a language permits in particular structural positions. It concerns sequences and their distribution, rather than only the inventory of individual phonemes. A physically pronounceable sequence need not be a usual word pattern in every language.[ref]
Essentials of Linguistics (2nd edition) by Catherine Anderson and others. §4.2, language-specific restrictions and onset examples
English commonly permits the syllable onset
[st], while [tl] is excluded from ordinary native onsets despite containing familiar consonants. A toy computational grammar over sounds p,t,a might allow exactly the CVC forms matching the regular expression [pt]a[pt], generating four possibilities. This stipulated example separates the sound inventory from a rule for combining it. Real descriptions need to distinguish word positions, syllable positions, loanwords and variation, and may represent graded preferences as well as categorical exclusions. Articles by others on the same topic
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