"war" [wor]

Benjamin Barrett gogaku at IX.NETCOM.COM
Fri Aug 15 06:06:13 UTC 2008


His point seems merely to be that the term is a misnomer because it
does not adequately describe what it does.

There seems to be nothing wrong with the term "minimally different
phonetic pair" except that it is not the jargon used in actual
practice. His comment seems to be aimed at stirring up trouble. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet)
  for a description of such behavior. BB

On Aug 14, 2008, at 10:59 PM, LanDi Liu wrote:

> 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
>>> _____________________________________________________________
>>

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