law of independent assortment
- noun
- /lɔː ʌv ɪnˈdɛpəndənt əˈsɔːrtmənt/
- Specialized
:
ley de segregación independiente
- Gregor Mendel first formulated the law of independent assortment through his experiments with pea plants.
Examples
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The law of independent assortment helps explain why siblings with the same parents can have different traits.
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According to the law of independent assortment, genes segregate independently.
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Biology students often study the law of independent assortment when learning about genetics and inheritance.
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The law of independent assortment explains how traits are inherited.
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Biology students often study the law of independent assortment when learning about genetics and inheritance.
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Gregor Mendel first formulated the law of independent assortment through his experiments with pea plants.
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The law of independent assortment helps explain why siblings with the same parents can have different traits.
Surface Forms
Morphology
law + of + independent + assortment
The phrase is compositionally interpretable as 'a law about assortments being independent'—the constituents 'law', 'independent', and 'assortment' transparently signal a general rule that different items are combined without influence on each other. However, the specific technical sense referring to chromosome segregation and gamete formation is specialized domain knowledge that a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words would unlikely infer.
Etymology
The term law of independent assortment comes from Gregor Mendel's pea experiments, where different trait pairs seemed to sort into seeds separately. Think of each trait like a coin you flip; each one lands on its own, so the independent assortment idea explains why siblings can have 'different traits'.
