noun
- Plural of alternant; things that alternate or occur in turns; in linguistics and mathematics, elements or forms that vary or substitute for one another in a pattern.
Usage: technical; linguistics; mathematics
Examples
- The alternants in the phonological system showed regular patterns of substitution.
- Linguists studied the alternants to understand how sounds change in different contexts.
- The mathematical model identified several alternants within the sequence.
- In generative grammar, alternants represent different surface realizations of the same underlying form.