binary opposition: Meaning and Definition of

bi'nary opposi'tion

Pronunciation: [key]
— Ling. Ling.
  1. a relation between the members of a pair of linguistic items, as a pair of distinctive features, such that one is the absence of the other, as voicelessness and voice, or that one is at the opposite pole from the other, as stridency and mellowness.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.