Lexic.us

Definition of Complementary distribution

1. Noun. (linguistics) a distribution of related speech sounds or forms in such a way that they only appear in different contexts.

Lexicographical Neighbors of Complementary Distribution

Literary usage of Complementary distribution

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. Toda Grammar and Texts by Murray Barnson Emeneau (1984)
"However, there can be no question of complementary distribution of n, since the few examples of the latter type of word structure show two consonants ..."

2. Electrical Papers by Oliver Heaviside (1894)
"This distribution must be imagined to exist in all the cores, each with its proper complementary distribution; the mean distribution to subside one way, ..."

3. An Introduction to the Theory of Electricity: With Numerous Examples by Linnaeus Cumming (1885)
"The complementary distribution on the outside, which is equal to the disguised or induced charge, must therefore be equal to the original charge of the body ..."

4. From Latin to Spanish by Paul M. Lloyd (1987)
"At the beginning, of course, as long as [<f>], [h], and [h<f>] were in their original complementary distribution, with solely phonetic factors determining ..."

5. The Standard Electrical Dictionary: A Popular Dictionary of Words, Terms by Thomas O'Conor Sloane (1892)
"complementary distribution. Every distribution of electricity has somewhere a corresponding distribution, exactly equal to it, of opposite electricity ..."

6. America's Power Resources: The Economic Significance of Coal, Oil and Water by Chester Garfield Gilbert, Joseph Ezekiel Pogue (1921)
"... of the potential water-power of the country, are all virtually without coal and bear testimony to this complementary distribution of power resources. ..."

7. Biodiversity and the Management of the Madrean Archipelago: The Sky Islands edited by Leonard F. DeBano (1999)
"There were two other probable exceptions to the complementary distribution of Chiricahua leopard frogs with introduced species. Horseshoe Pothole Canyon in ..."

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