A bipartite, complementary opposition, such as langue vs parole, synchronic vs diachronic linguistics, competence vs performance. Markey, T.L. 1976. Studies in European linguistic theory: the dichotomy precept....

A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts. In other words, it is a bipartition of elements. i.e. nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts, and everything must belong to one part or the other. They are often...