minimal pairs

[Robert Whiting]

On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, Larry Trask wrote:

> Robert Whiting writes:

>> Now there are those who say that they have no rules for the
>> pronunciation of <th>.  Presumably, when they encounter in print
>> an unfamiliar word with <th> in it they have to go to the
>> dictionary to find out how to pronounce it.  I happen to have
>> generalized rules for the pronunciation of <th> so I can usually
>> make a guess that will be right about 98 times out of 100 about
>> how <th> should be pronounced in an unfamiliar word.  I came
>> across one the other day:  'poikilothermic'.  Without going to
>> the dictionary I knew two things just by looking at it:  a) it is
>> not a native English word, and therefore, b) the <th> is
>> pronounced [T].

> This is usually a good rule, but there are a few exceptions.

That's why I say it only works 98 times out of 100.

> I can think of 'rhythm', 'logarithm' and 'algorithm', and their
> derivatives, all of which have eth in spite of their Greek origin.
> There must be a subrule here, though 'arithmetic' has theta.

First, 'algorithm' is not greek, but comes from Arabic.  The final
cluster, however, is probably by analogy to 'logarithm' since it was
originally '-ism'.  Second, I already pointed these out in a posting
on Fri, 14 Apr 2000.  It seems likely that the environment /___ m#
has an effect on the pronunciation of theta.

> There are also a couple of miscellaneous nasties, like 'asthma'
> and 'thyme', and, in Britain, 'Anthony'. These, in spite of their
> spelling and in spite of their classical origin, fail to contain
> any dental fricatives at all.

I find the same thing in my pronunciation of 'clothes', which sounds
just like my pronunciation of 'close' (v.).  There are also names
like Thomas and Thames.

Bob Whiting
whiting at cc.helsinki.fi