Rules of complementary distribution of phones are concerned with
A)what is physically possible given the human vocal apparatus.
B)the sounds that linguists have encountered in human languages all over the world.
C)patterns in the occurrence of allophones of a phoneme.
D)discovering minimal pairs and using them to identify phonemes in a particular language.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Complementary distribution of phones refers to the phenomenon where allophones (variant forms of a phoneme) occur in non-overlapping, specific phonetic environments within a language. This means that the choice between using one allophone over another is not random but is determined by the phonetic context, indicating patterns in the occurrence of allophones of a phoneme.

Rules of Complementary Distribution of Phones Are Concerned with