Contrastive distribution in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...

, as opposed to complementary distribution or

free variation In linguistics, free variation is the phenomenon of two (or more) sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers. Sociolinguists argue that describing such ...

, is the relationship between two different elements in which both elements are found in the same environment with a change in meaning.

Phonology

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 ...

, two sounds of a language are said to be in contrastive distribution if replacing one with the other in the same phonological environment results in a change in meaning. If a sound is in contrastive distribution, it is considered a

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

in that language. For example, in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

, the sounds and can both occur word-initially, as in the words ''pat'' and ''bat'' ( minimal pairs), which are distinct

morphemes A morpheme is the smallest meaningful constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology. In English, morphemes are often but not necessarily words. Morphemes that stand alone a ...

. Therefore, and are in contrastive distribution and so are phonemes of English. Note that two sounds that are in contrastive distribution in one language can be in complementary distribution or free variation in another. These sounds occur in English, as in the word ''team'' and ''steam'' , but their occurrence is purely dependent upon phonological context. Therefore, in English, and are not in contrastive distribution but in complementary distribution.

Morphology

In morphology, two morphemes are in contrastive distribution if they occur in the same environment, but have different meanings. For example, in Korean, noun phrases are followed by one of the various markers that indicate syntactic role: /-ka/, /-i/, /-(l)ul/, etc. /-ka/ and /-i/ are in complementary distribution. They are both used to indicate

nominative case In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Eng ...

, and their occurrence is conditioned by the final sound of the preceding noun. If the noun ends in a consonant, /-i/ occurs; otherwise, /-ka/. /-(l)ul/, on the other hand, occurs in the same position as /-i/ or /-ka/ and is also conditioned by the immediately previous sound, but it indicates the

accusative case The accusative case ( abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘t ...

. Therefore, /-(l)ul/ and the set {/-i/, /-ka/} are in contrastive distribution.

Syntax

syntax In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure ( constituenc ...

, the requirements are similar. In English, the expression of the

indicative A realis mood ( abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Mos ...

and the

subjunctive The subjunctive (also known as conjunctive in some languages) is a grammatical mood, a feature of the utterance that indicates the speaker's attitude towards it. Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality s ...

moods is contrastive: :(1) If I ''am'' a rich man, then I have a lot of money. :(2) If I ''were'' a rich man, then I would have a lot of money. The change from non-past first-person singular indicative ''am'' to the subjunctive ''were'' results in a change in the

grammatical mood In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used for signaling modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying (for example, a statement of ...

of the sentence.

Phonology

Morphology

Syntax

See also