[Ads-l] Minimal pair for English /t ͡ʃ/ vs. /tʃ/

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM
Tue Mar 28 17:29:49 UTC 2017


On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 12:41 PM, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:

> Can anyone suggest a good minimal pair for English /t͡ʃ/ and /tʃ/ besides
> "catch it" and "cat shit", which has obvious non-phonological problems?
>

If it was good enough for Bloomfield... (Supposedly it appears in an
article he wrote on juncture -- perhaps Larry knows it. I've read that he
masked the minimal pair as "catch it" and "that shirt").

There's also "ratchet" vs. "rat shit", which is no good either, I suppose.
In a sci.lang discussion some years ago, Nathan Sanders suggested "the
catchy titles" vs. "the cat she titles". Or how about "nacho" vs. "not
show", as blogged by Neal Whitman?

https://literalminded.wordpress.com/2006/01/10/i-love-not-shows/

--bgz

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