Back توزيع تكاملي Arabic Distribución complementaria Spanish Täydennysjakauma Finnish Distribusi komplementer ID Distribuzione (linguistica) Italian 相補分布 Japanese 상보적 분포 Korean Dystrybucja komplementarna Polish Distribuição complementar Portuguese Дистрибуция#Типы дистрибуции Russian
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In linguistics, complementary distribution (as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation) is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other element is found in a non-intersecting (complementary) set of environments.
The term often indicates that two superficially-different elements are the same linguistic unit at a deeper level, though more than two elements can be in complementary distribution with one another.