Complementary distribution in
linguistics is the relationship between two different elements, where one element is found in a particular environment and the other element is found in the opposite environment. It often indicates that two superficially different elements are in fact the same linguistic unit at a deeper level.In some instances, more than two elements can be in complementary distribution with one another.
In phonology
Complementary distribution is commonly applied to
phonology, where similar
phones in complementary distribution are usually
allophones of the same phoneme. For instance, in English, and are allophones of the
phoneme because they occur in complementary distribution. always occurs when it is the
syllable onset and followed by a
stress vowel (as in the word
pin). occurs in all other situations (as in the word spin).There are cases where elements are in complementary distribution, but are not considered allophones. For example in English and (
engma, written with the digraph <-ng> in English) are in complementary distribution, since only occurs at the beginning of a syllable and only at the end. But because they have so little in common in phonetic terms they are still considered separate phonemes.
An Introduction to Language by Victoria Fromkin
In morphology
The concept of complementary distribution is applied in the analysis of word forms (
morphology). Two different word forms (
allomorphs) can actually be...
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