FW: Minimal pairs

[Janet Marting]

To me, they seem to be examples of
resyllabification/suprasegmentals/pause/juncture, features of intonation.
Minimal pairs was one difference in a phone/sound that appears in the same
position (e.g. sip-dip-lip-tip).

Jinny Marting



-----Original Message-----
From: Joel S. Berson [mailto:Berson at ATT.NET]
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 1:15 PM
Subject: Minimal pairs

My minimal instruction in minimal pairs (I took one semester of comparative
linguistics) taught me that "light-house keeper" and "light house-keeper"
were one (was one? were two?).  I now offer another (here, since I no longer
remember the name of the author of the textbook, who included in it a
solicitation of minimal pairs from his readers):

"small-business woman" and "small business-woman".

(I do actually intend to say the former in conversation today.)

Joel

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