complementary allophone

plural complementary allophones

1. human sciencesA 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

   1 more example

   ... 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 2010, John Benjamins Publishing, →ISBN, page 47