n. The relation which holds in a given speech variety between two phones which never occur in the same environment. For example, in the English of England, clear l occurs only before a vowel, while dark l never occurs before a vowel; in many varieties...

Concept introduced by N.Trubetzkoy (1939), term for the distribution of two allophones of the same phoneme which never occur in the same phonetic environment. ( also free variation) Trubetzkoy, N. 1939. Grundzüge der Phonologie. Göttingen....

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...