English

Noun

alternation ‎(plural alternations)

1. The reciprocal succession of (normally two) things in time or place; the act of following and being followed by turns; alternate succession, performance, or occurrence; as, the alternation of day and night, cold and heat, summer and winter, hope and fear.
2. The response of the congregation speaking alternately with the minister.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Mason to this entry?)

3. (linguistics) Ablaut.
4. (linguistics) A pattern by which more than one construct is possible, as with "Alice cooked Bob dinner" and "Alice cooked dinner for Bob".

   dative alternation; locative alternation

5. (logic) The "inclusive or" truth function.
6. (mathematics) A sequence that alternates between positive and negative values; sometimes incorrectly used to mean permutation.
7. (computing) A construct in a regular expression that can match any of several specified subexpressions.
8. (geometry) A type of partial truncation of a polygon, polyhedron or tiling in which alternate vertices are removed.
   • 1932, Harold Scott Macdonald Coxeter, The densities of the regular polytopes, part 2, reprinted in 1995, F. Arthur Sherk, Peter Mcmullen, Anthony C. Thompson, Asia Ivić Weiss (editors), Kaleidoscopes: Selected Writings of H. S. M. Coxeter, page 54,

     This case suggests that the alternation of a polyhedron should be bounded by actual vertex figures and alternated faces. The case of the cube is in agreement with this notion, since the alternated square is nothing.

Derived terms

• alternation of generations

Translations