conditioned (adj.)

A term used in LINGUISTICS to refer to the FORM a linguistic UNIT takes when this is partly or wholly determined by the linguistic CONTEXT in which it occurs. For example, in English PHONOLOGY, the ALVEOLAR /t/ PHONEME predictably becomes DENTAL when followed by /θ/, as in eighth, i.e.  is a conditioned variant of /t/; in MORPHOPHONOLOGY, the indefinite ARTICLE a becomes an when followed by a VOWEL. The concept of ALLO- is the most succinct way of referring to phonological and GRAMMATICAL ‘conditioning’, and other terms are sometimes used for the same phenomenon, e.g. ‘contextual/ positional/combinatory/automatic’ variants. The term conditioning is also sometimes used with reference to the influence of the social/cultural situation on the choice of linguistic forms (‘environmental conditioning’).