Minimal pair

From Free net encyclopedia

In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have a distinct meaning. They are used to demonstrate that two phones constitute two separate phonemes in the language.

English "let" + "lit" proves that phones Template:IPA and Template:IPA do in fact represent distinct phonemes Template:IPA and Template:IPA. The phones do not have to be vowels, as the English minimal pair of "pat" + "bat" shows. In fact, this pair differs in voice onset time of the initial consonant as the configuration of the mouth is same for Template:IPA and Template:IPA; however, there is also a possible difference in duration, which visual analysis using high quality video supports.

Phonemic differentiation may vary between different dialects of a language, so that a particular minimal pair in one accent is a pair of homophones in another. This does not necessarily mean that one of the phonemes is absent in the homonym accent; merely that it is not present in the same range of contexts.

1 Examples
2 External links

[edit]

Examples

[edit]

Differentiations in English

Following pairs prove existence of various distinct phonemes in English.

word 1	word 2	IPA 1	IPA 2	note
pin	bin	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	initial consonant
rot	lot	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
zeal	seal	Template:IPA	Template:IPA
bin	bean	Template:IPA/	Template:IPA	vowel
pen	pan	Template:IPA/	Template:IPA	vowel
hat	had	Template:IPA	Template:IPA	final consonant

[edit]

Differentiating consonants with same location and manner of articulation

In the articulation of bilabial plosives, 4 phones are defined by the characteristics voiced/unvoiced and aspirated/unaspirated: Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA. In different languages only some of these may occur and the number of phonemes formed may be different again.

In English, phones Template:IPA as in "spin" and Template:IPA as in "pin" both occur, but are allophones of the phoneme Template:IPA and no minimal pair can be found to distinguish them, but the word "bin" shows that the phone Template:IPA forms a phoneme Template:IPA separate from Template:IPA.

In Mandarin only phones (and phonemes) Template:IPA and Template:IPA occur. In the Pinyin transcription Template:IPA is written "p" and Template:IPA is written "b" (using the two available latin letters for the two phonemes).

In French and many other European languages only phones (and phonemes) Template:IPA and Template:IPA occur.

In Hindi, all four phones are separate phonemes.

In Thai, three phones occur and form three phonemes, as shown by the example:

word	IPA	meaning
ใบ	Template:IPA	sheet
ไป	Template:IPA	to go
ภัย	Template:IPA	danger

[edit]

Differentiating vowels

The following table shows a minimal set in French distinguishing vowels, some or all of which may sound alike to an Anglophone, because the Template:IPA and Template:IPA sounds do not exist in English:

word	IPA	meaning
cire	Template:IPA	wax
sûre	Template:IPA	sure
soeur	Template:IPA	sister
sieur	Template:IPA	sir
sueur	Template:IPA	sweat

[edit]

Differentiating consonants

A minimal triplet of consonants in French is:

word	IPA	meaning
bête noire	Template:IPA	black beast, pet peeve
baie noire	Template:IPA	black berry (not blackberry, which is mûre sauvage)
baignoire	Template:IPA	bathtub

Because Template:IPA is not a single phoneme in French, this shows a minimal pair between the presence and absence of Template:IPA next to Template:IPA, which shares its point of articulation. Template:IPA and Template:IPA differ only in point of articulation.

There are three verbs in Hebrew which demonstrate the distinction, in some dialects, between a velar stop and an uvular stop on one hand, and a glottal stop with and without tightening of the throat on the other:

word	transcription	meaning
קרא	Template:IPA	read, call
קרע	Template:IPA	tear apart
כרע	Template:IPA	kneel

In the following two Hebrew verbs, the only distinction is a glottal stop in the middle of the first word:

word	transcription	meaning
לראות	Template:IPA	see
לירות	Template:IPA	shoot

In Korean, phones [r] in Korea and [l] in Seoul are allophones of the phoneme /l/ and are perceived by native speakers of Korean as a single letter i.e. phoneme. The difference is that [r] is pronounced before vowels.

In Spanish, [z] and [s] are both allophones of /s/ and [z] appears only before voiced consonants as in mismo /mizmo/.

[edit]

Differentiating chronemes

Hungarian and Italian have distinctive length of consonants, as did Latin. A differentiator for length is called a chroneme. Note that IPA allows length to be indicating by doubling the symbol, commonly used for consonants, while generally the special lengthening sign Template:IPA is used for vowels. E.g. in Italian:

word	IPA	meaning
pina	Template:IPA	pine
pinna	Template:IPA	fin

Hungarian, German and Thai have distinctive vowel length, as did Latin. E.g. in Thai (and compare this example also to the one on tone):

word	IPA	RTGS	quality	meaning
เขา	Template:IPA	khǎo	short, rising tone	he/she
ขาว	Template:IPA	khǎo	long, rising tone	white
เข้า	Template:IPA	khâo	short, falling tone	enter
ข้าว	Template:IPA	khâo	long, falling tone	rice
เข่า	Template:IPA	khào	short, low tone	knee
ข่าว	Template:IPA	khào	long, low tone	news

[edit]

Differentiating tonemes

Languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Thai and many African languages. (See: pitch accent and tonal language.) For example in Thai:

word	IPA	RTGS	quality	meaning
ขาว	Template:IPA	khǎ:o	rising tone	white
ข้าว	Template:IPA	khâ:o	falling tone	rice
ข่าว	Template:IPA	khà:o	low tone	news

[edit]

Differentiating stress

Spanish, Romanian and Italian have many minimal pairs differing only in stress. Dutch has several, e.g. (stress indicated by acute accent):

language	word	IPA	meaning
Dutch	voorkómen	Template:IPA	prevent
Dutch	vóórkomen	Template:IPA	occur
Romanian	copíi	Template:IPA	children
Romanian	cópii	Template:IPA	copies

Minimal pairs may differ superficially in more than one place if one feature is dependent on the other. For example, English record (noun) and record (verb) (and similar pairs) appear superficially not to be minimal pairs for stress because they differ in vowel quality as well. However, since the differences in vowel quality are predictable consequences of the differences in stress, such pairs are considered minimal pairs. The case is similar in Russian, eg. мука ('torture, pain') and мука ('flour').

[edit]