"war" [wor]

[LanDi Liu]

To be a little more specific to the neophyte (TZ), "minimal pair" is a
technical term that describes two words (a "pair") that have a very
small pronunciation difference; for ex. "shit" and "sheet".  Minimal
pairs are heavily used in ESL teaching to help learners distinguish
between words that sound similar to non native speakers: "Your sheet
is on my bed" vs "Your shit is on my bed".

"Pair" and "dare" are not minimal pairs because the difference ([p] vs
[d]) involve different places of articulation, so the difference is
not "minimal".

"Shit" and "sheet" are minimal pairs because both vowels are high
front vowels, with the second higher and fronter than the first.

Randy

On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Gordon, Matthew J.
<GordonMJ at missouri.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Gordon, Matthew J." <GordonMJ at MISSOURI.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "war" [wor]
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Minimal pair is exactly what Charlie is describing since he maintains =
> the historical distinction between the vowels of 'for' and 'four'.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Tom Zurinskas
> Sent: Thu 8/14/2008 9:32 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:      Re: "war" [wor]
> =20
> Minimal pair is actually a misnomer.  It should be minimally different =
> phonetic pair.  It's the case where one sound is different, such as pair =
> and dare.
>
>
> Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+
> See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at =
> authorhouse.com.
>
>> Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:51:32 -0400
>> From: cdoyle at UGA.EDU
>> Subject: Re: "war" [wor]
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header =
> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: Charles Doyle
>> Subject: Re: "war" [wor]
>> =
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------=
> ------
>>
>> Yes; "for"/"four" are a minimal pair!
>>
>> --Charlie
>> _____________________________________________________________
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
Randy Alexander
Jilin City, China
My Manchu studies blog:
http://www.bjshengr.com/manchu

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