variant (adj./n.)

A term used in LINGUISTICS to refer to a linguistic FORM which is one of a set of alternatives in a given CONTEXT; it contrasts with invariant. The concept is fundamental to the notion of ALLO- (-PHONE, -MORPH, etc.), as illustrated by the variant forms of the past-TENSE MORPHEME (/-t/, /-d/, /-Id/, etc.). The choice of variants may be subject to contextual constraints (conditioned variants), or there may be no stateable CONDITIONS – the cases of free variants.