Contrastive distribution If speech sounds occur in the same phonetic environment and the substitution of one for another results in a different word then they are said to be in contrastive distribution Sounds in contrastive distribution should be assigned to different phonemes Example: /gud/ and /ga: dContrastive Distribution • If speech sounds occur in the same phonetic environment and the substitution of one for another results in a different word, then they are said to be in contrastive distribution. • Sounds in contrastive distribution should be assigned to different phonemes. • Example: /gud/ and /ga:d/