gradual (adj.)

A type of OPPOSITION recognized by PRAGUE SCHOOL PHONOLOGY, distinguished from PRIVATIVE and EQUIPOLLENT. A gradual opposition is one where degrees of difference in a LANGUAGE are recognized along a scale of some kind, as in a language with four FRONT VOWELS /i/, /e/, /ε/ and /a/ where (according to Nicolai Trubetskoy) it would not be desirable to analyze the four degrees of vowel height in terms of privative pairs, such as ‘high’ v. ‘low’.