free variation

A term used in PHONOLOGY, referring to the SUBSTITUTABILITY of one sound for another in a given ENVIRONMENT, with no consequent change in the word’s MEANING, as when a speaker articulates a word like sit with an unreleased or a released PLOSIVE, or different pronunciations are given to either . These different phonetic realizations of a PHONEME are called free variants (opposed to the ‘contextual variants’ found in cases of COMPLEMENTARY DISTRIBUTION). In traditional phonological study, free variation has been considered to be an area of little importance; but in SOCIOLINGUISTIC studies it is suggested that free variants need to be described, in terms of the frequency with which they occur, because the choice of one variant rather than another may be made on sociological grounds, as when one ‘chooses’ a careful rather than a ‘casual’ speech style.

The term ‘free variation’ is occasionally applied analogously in grammar and SEMANTICS, as when SYNONYMOUS expressions might be said to be in ‘free variation’.