Of course, those larger units also have to be distinguishable from each other. It is not difficult to distinguish between units that are made up of completely different sounds. Take the units [b\u025b\u0279] and [h\u028af]. As becomes evident when we represent their segments as bundles of features, they do not share any features at any position:<\/p>\n
![\"a](\"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/lei\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bear-hoof-300x185.png\")
Figure 4.2.1: The words bear<\/em> and hoof<\/em> represented as bundles of phonetic features (American English).<\/p><\/div>\n The two sequences of speech sounds would be different even if we ignored two of the three features at any position.<\/p>\n This is not the case with the sequences [b\u025b\u0279] and [p\u025b\u0279]. In order to associate them with different meanings, like BEAR and PEAR in English, we must pay attention to voicing.<\/p>\n Figure 4.2.2: The words bear<\/em> and pear<\/em> represented as bundles of phonetic features (American English).<\/p><\/div>\n If we did not pay attention to voicing, the two sequences would be identical, which would lead to potentially life-threatening situations if we thought that someone had asked us to pluck bears<\/em> from a tree instead of pears<\/em>. The words bear<\/em> and pear<\/em> differ in terms of aspiration, too: the first segment of bear<\/em> is unaspirated, the first segment of pear<\/em> is aspirated. However, we do not have to pay attention to this fact, because the words are also distinguished by the voicing difference of the first segment.<\/p>\n This is not the case in Hindi, where we have to pay attention to aspiration in order to associate the sequences [b\u0251\u02d0lu\u02d0] and [b\u02b0\u0251\u02d0lu\u02d0] with the meanings ‘sand’ and ‘bear’ respectively.<\/p>\n Figure 4.2.3: The words baaloo<\/em> and bhaloo<\/em> represented as bundles of phonetic features (Hindi).<\/p><\/div>\n If, as speakers of Hindi, we did not pay attention to aspiration, our brains would categorize the two sequences as identical, which could lead to potentially life-threatening situations if we thought that someone suggested building a [b\u02b0\u0251\u02d0lu\u02d0 ka\u02d0 \u02c8m\u025b\u0266\u025bl] (\u092c\u093e\u0932\u0942 \u0915\u093e \u092e\u0939\u0932, bear castle) instead of a [b\u0251\u02d0lu\u02d0 ka\u02d0 \u02c8m\u025b\u0266\u025bl] (\u092d\u093e\u0932\u0942 \u0915\u093e \u092e\u0939\u0932, sand castle).<\/p>\n What we have done above is use minimal pairs<\/strong> \u2014 two different words that differ in just one phone \u2014 in order to identify phonemes and their relevant properties: [b\u025b\u0279] and [p\u025b\u0279] are identical except for the first slot: [ _ \u025b\u0279]. Since [p] and [b] can both occur in the first slot resulting in two different words, they are distinct phonemes (our brains put them into different categories). To distinguish phonemes from phones, they are enclosed by slashes rather than square brackets: \/p\/<\/strong>, \/b\/<\/strong>.<\/p>\n We can use this procedure to identify other phonemes of English: for example<\/p>\n These phonemic distinctions also confirm that voicing is a phonologically relevant feature in English. We can also find minimal pairs that confirm the relevance of places and manners of articulation. For example,<\/p>\n We will not find a minimal pair for [b\u02b0] and [b] or for [p\u02b0] and [p] in English. In the first case, this is simply due to the fact that voiced plosives are never aspirated in English, so that there are no words containing a [b\u02b0]. Languages differ in their inventories of speech sounds.<\/p>\n The second case is more interesting: voiceless plosives can be aspirated or unaspirated in English, so that there are words containing [p] and words containing [p\u02b0] \u2014 for example, spare<\/em> and pear<\/em>. However, the two phones cannot occur in the same position in an otherwise identical sequence of phones, so there cannot be any pairs of words that are identical except for aspiration. We will discuss this in the next section.<\/p>\n If two phones can occur in the same phonetic contexts and be perceived as different, they are said to contrast<\/strong> with each other, to be in contrastive distribution<\/strong>. Minimal pairs are the clearest evidence of a contrastive distribution: if changing one phone in a word gives us a different word, then the two phones obviously contrast with each other. So, finding a minimal pair is the simplest and most convincing way of showing that two phones are separate phonemes. Sometimes, we even find whole sets of words that differ by just one speech sound. For example, for American English, the words beet<\/em>, bit<\/em>, bait<\/em>, bite<\/em>, bet<\/em>, bat<\/em>, but<\/em>, bot<\/em>, bought<\/em>, boat<\/em>, boot<\/em> and bout<\/em> provide evidence for the phonemic status of almost all vowel phones in a single step: [i], [\u026a], [e\u026a], [a\u026a], [\u025b], [\u00e6], [\u028c], [\u0251], [\u0254], [o\u028a], [u], and [a\u028a] (AmE).<\/p>\n However, there are cases where finding convincing minimal pairs is very difficult. Take the voiced postalveolar fricative [\u0292] in English. It is very rare consonant. It occurs mostly in words that end end in -ion<\/em> (for example, [v\u026a\u0292\u0259n] vision<\/em>), -ual<\/em> (for example, [\u02c8v\u026a\u0292u\u0259l], visual<\/em>), and -ure<\/em> (for example, [m\u025b\u0292\u0259\u0279] measure<\/em>). Such endings are a special type of sign that can attach to other words to form new words, we will discuss them further in Chapter 5<\/a>. There is only a handful of other words that contain it, for example, [\u0279u\u0292] rouge<\/em> and [\u0261\u0259\u02c8\u0279\u0251\u0292] garage<\/em>, [\u02c8bu\u02d0.\u0292i] bougie<\/em>, [\u02c8\u0292\u0251\u02d0n.d\u0251\u02d0rm\/] gendarme,<\/em> [\u02c8\u0292\u0251n\u0279\u0259] genre,<\/em>\u00a0[\u0292\u00e6\u02c8bo\u028a] jabot<\/em> and [\u0292\u028a\u0292] zhoosh<\/em> \u2014 all of them French loanwords, except for the last one, which is from Polari. It is also somewhat unstable, with a tendency to change to [d\u0292], especially in British English, where some of the AmE pronunciations shown here do not exist or have alternatives with [d\u0292]. Given its rarity, it is not surprising that it is difficult to find minimal pairs in which [\u0292] contrasts, for example, with the voiceless postalveolar fricative [\u0283] or with the voiced postalveolar affricate [d\u0292].<\/p>\n For [d\u0292] and [\u0292], we find [\u02c8li\u02d0.d\u0292\u0259n] legion<\/em> versus [\u02c8li\u02d0.\u0292\u0259n] lesion<\/em> and [\u02c8pl\u025b\u0292\u0259\u0279] pleasure<\/em> vs. [\u02c8pl\u025bd\u0292\u0259\u0279] pledger<\/em> \u2018someone who pledges something\u2019, for [\u0283] and [\u0292], we find [\u0259\u02c8lu\u0292\u0259n] allusion<\/em> versus [\u0259\u02c8lu\u0283\u0259n] Aleutian<\/em> or [\u02c8m\u025b\u0292\u0259\u0279] measure<\/em> versus [\u02c8m\u025b\u0283\u0259\u0279] mesher<\/em> \u2018a device for creating a mesh\u2019. But the second member of both pairs is very rare, many English speakers may not know them. And they are words containing the special endings mentioned above, so we should be careful when accepting them as evidence.<\/p>\n In such cases, or in cases where we do not find a minimal pair at all, it is important to understand that it is not the existence of a minimal pair that determines whether two phones are distinct phonemes, but the question whether they are in contrastive distribution, i.e., whether they can create a contrast in the same phonetic environment. If there is a minimal pair, we can immediately conclude that the phones involved are in contrastive distribution. If there is not, we can look for words that have the two phones in the same immediate context \u2014 the same position in the syllable, the same stress pattern and the same phones occuring to the left and right. For [\u0292], [\u0283] and [d\u0292], for example, we find [\u0279u\u0292] rouge<\/em> and [du\u0283] douche<\/em> and [hjud\u0292] huge<\/em>, where they occur after a [u] at the end of the word.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"a](\"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/lei\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/bear-pear-300x186.png\")
![\"A](\"https:\/\/linguistica.info\/b\/lei\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/balu-bhalu-300x170.png\")
Identifying phonemes using minimal pairs<\/h2>\n
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Contrastive distribution<\/h2>\n