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complementary allophone

complementary allophone noun: a variant pronunciations of a phoneme that occur in specific phonetic contexts and do not change the meaning of a word.

Noun

complementary allophone (plural complementary allophones)

  1. A variant pronunciations of a phoneme that occur in specific phonetic contexts and do not change the meaning of a word
    • ... complementary allophone from the underlying phoneme. In each pair, the unaspirated form has a more general distribution. The aspirated allophone occurs in a very specific set of circumstances: in initial position of a word or stressed[…]2017, Robert Kennedy, Phonology: A Coursebook, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 102
    • ... complementary allophone of /i/, its occurrence being largely restricted to positions before /r, h, hw/. Similarly, the emergence of short 〈aú〉 /ɔ/ was primarily associated with PGmc. /u/ preceding the same three consonants. In Early[…]2012, Irén Heged?s, Alexandra Fodor, English Historical Linguistics 2010: Selected Papers from the Sixteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 16), Pécs, 23-27 August...

Forms of complementary allophone

pluralcomplementary allophones

Questions about complementary allophone

What does complementary allophone mean?
Complementary allophone means a variant pronunciations of a phoneme that occur in specific phonetic contexts and do not change the meaning of a word.
What part of speech is complementary allophone?
Complementary allophone is a noun.
What is the plural of complementary allophone?
The plural of complementary allophone is complementary allophones.

Words near complementary allophone in the dictionary

  1. complementarily
  2. complementariness
  3. complementarities
  4. complementarity
  5. complementary
  6. complementary allophone
  7. complementary angle
  8. complementary angles
  9. complementary antonym
  10. complementary antonyms
  11. complementary color

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: complementary allophone (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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