In linguistic terms, vocabulary refers to:

• A. The words of a language
• B. A list of literary genres
• C. The sounds of speech
• D. The rules of grammar

Answer: (A)

Vocabulary in linguistics is the set of words that make up a language—the language’s lexicon. It encompasses the words speakers know and use, along with their meanings, forms, and how they combine with other words. This focus on words distinguishes vocabulary from the sounds of speech (phonology), which deals with pronunciation, and from grammar (syntax and morphology), which governs how words are arranged and changed to express tense, number, or other relationships. A list of literary genres isn’t about the building blocks of language, so it isn’t vocabulary. So, vocabulary refers to the words of a language.