Minimal pairs

[Tom Zurinskas]

To me it works like this
 
for "light-house keeper"  (~lietous keeper~) stress is on "light".  "house" is not stressed and the "h" in house probably is not spoken (~lietous).  There is a pause before "keeper".  The "keep" part of keeper is stressed.
 
for "light house-keeper" (~liet houskeeper~) stess is on "light" and "house".  The "h" in house is pronounced. (~liet hous) because of the pause for word break.  "Keeper" has both syllables unstressed (~houskeeper). 
 
Boils down to ~lietous vs ~liet hous~.
 
(In ~truespel stress is on the first syllable vowel or on the vowel after a double consonant).Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL5+See truespel.com - and the 4 truespel books plus "Occasional Poems" at authorhouse.com. > Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2008 09:11:20 -0400> From: marting at UAKRON.EDU> Subject: FW: Minimal pairs> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>> Poster: Janet Marting <marting at UAKRON.EDU>> Subject: FW: Minimal pairs> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------> > To me, they seem to be examples of> resyllabification/suprasegmentals/pause/juncture, features of intonation.> Minimal pairs was one difference in a phone/sound that appears in the same> position (e.g. sip-dip-lip-tip).> > Jinny Marting> > > > -----Original Message-----> From: Joel S. Berson [mailto:Berson at ATT.NET]> Sent: Friday, October 17, 2008 1:15 PM> Subject: Minimal pairs> > My minimal instruction in minimal pairs (I took one semester of comparative> linguistics) taught me that "light-house keeper" and "light house-keeper"> were one (was one? were two?). I now offer another (here, since I no longer> remember the name of the author of the textbook, who included in it a> solicitation of minimal pairs from his readers):> > "small-business woman" and "small business-woman".> > (I do actually intend to say the former in conversation today.)> > Joel> > ------------------------------------------------------------> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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