"war" [wor]

[LanDi Liu]

On Fri, Aug 15, 2008 at 2:27 PM, Michael Covarrubias
<mcovarru at purdue.edu> wrote:
> LanDi Liu wrote:
>> "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
>>
>
> You don't consider [per] and [der] a minimal pair Randy? I do. I've
> always gone with a single phoneme distinction not just a single feature.
>
> Interesting. What about differences in place with identical manner and
> voicing. Would you consider that a minimal pair? Does it depend of the
> inventory of the language you're studying?
>
> michael

Hmmm.  I didn't consider them minimal pairs I guess because the way
minimal pairs are used in ESL is to teach differentiation between
things that are very similar.  Looking at definitions of minimal pairs
on the web, though, and being reminded of the use of minimal pairs to
distinguish phonemes in a language/dialect, I guess my definition is a
little different.

"Sit" and "mitt" differ in one phoneme, but one is an alveolar
fricative and the other is a bilabial nasal, and therefore have
nothing in common with each other, so this wouldn't be a candidate for
an ESL minimal pair list.

Are there any others that lean toward a definition similar to mine?
[Ignoring for now the other usage of using minimal pairs to validate
phonemes?]

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

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