"war" [wor]

[Arnold M. Zwicky]

On Aug 15, 2008, at 12:18 AM, LanDi Liu wrote:

> 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.

yes, it's not the standard definition.  the ESL lists are indeed of
minimal pairs (in the standard sense), but they give only the
distinctions in english that are likely to be problematic for learners
-- problematic because they involve small phonetic differences that
are not contrastive in many languages.  (as i recall, the ESL lists
are often tailored for ESL learners from specific language backgrounds.)

arnold

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