In phonology, minimum pair are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language that differ only in one phonological element, such as phonemes, tonnes or kronem, and have different meanings. They are used to indicate that two phones are two separate phonemes in the language.
Many phonologists in the mid-20th century had a strong interest in developing techniques for discovering unknown language phonemes, and in some cases, they set up the writing system for language. Kenneth Pike's main work on the subject is Phonemics: a technique for reducing language to writing . Minimum pairings are an important tool in the process of discovery and are found by substitution or commutation tests.
Modern phonology is much less interested in such issues, and the minimal couples consequently are considered less theoretically important.
For example for English vocals, the pair "l e t" "l i t" can be used to indicate that the phone [?] (in l < b> i t) actually represents a different phoneme /?/ and /?/. An example for an English consonant is a minimal pair " p in" " b at". The following table shows another pair showing different phonemes in English. All possible minimal pairs for any language can be set in the same way.
Phonemic differentiation may vary between different dialect languages ​​so that a certain minimal pair in one accent may be a pair of homophones in the other. That means not one of the phonemes does not exist in a homonym accent but only that it does not contrast in the same context.
Video Minimal pair
Jenis
In addition to the minimum pairs of vowels and consonants provided above, others can be found:
Amount
Many languages ​​show the contrast between long and short vowels and consonants. The striking length difference is caused by some phonologists to a unit called chroneme. Thus, Italy has the following minimum pair based on the long and short /l/:
However, in such cases it is not easy to decide whether long vowels or consonants should be treated as having an extra chroneme or just as geminate sounds with phonemes.
Classical Latin, German, some Italian dialects, almost all Ural, Thai, and many other languages ​​also have different vowel lengths. An example is c?/C? minimum pair in the spoken dialect near Palmi (Calabria, Italy):
Syntax gemination
In some languages ​​like Italian, the first word consonant is echoed after certain final vowel words in the same prosodic unit. Sometimes, the phenomenon can create several pairs of syntax-gem-minimal:
In the example, a graphic accent on dÃÆ' is just a diacritical mark that does not change the pronunciation itself. However, in certain areas, such as Tuscany, the two phrases are pronounced /da'kka: za/ so it can be distinguished only from context.
Tone
Minimum pairings for tone contrast in tone language can be established; some authors refer to it as a contrast involving toneme. For example, Kono differentiates high notes and low tones on syllables:
Stress
The language in which stress can occur in different positions in words often has contrast that can be displayed in a minimum pair, such as in Greek and Spanish:
Juncture
English speakers can hear the difference between, say, "great ape" and "gray ribbon", but phonemically, the two phrases are identical: /? re? te? p/. The difference between two phrases, which is a minimal pair, is said to be one of the time points. At the word boundary, the "plus point"//is assumed and said to be the allophonic conditioning factor to allow for its uniqueness: the result is that the "great ape" has /e?/ diphthong abbreviated with pre-fortis clippings and, therefore not an initial syllable, a
Only languages ​​with allophonic differences are related to grammatical boundaries that have a time point as phonological elements. It is said that French does not have a time point as a phonological element, for example, " des petits trous " (small hole) and "span lang =" fr "title =" French text "> des petites roues " (small wheel), phonemically both /dep? Tit? U/, is phonetically identical.
Maps Minimal pair
Set minimum
The simple binary opposition principle between two pair members can at least be extended to include a minimal set in which a number of words differ from each other in the case of a single phone in a particular position in that word. For example, vowel /a/, /e/, < span title = "Representation in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)">/i/, /o/, /u/ of Swahili is shown to be different from the following set of words: pata 'hinge', map 'bend', ribbon 'pass', pota 'twist', puta 'thrash'. However, establishing such a device is not always clear and may require a very complicated study of the various disagreements as described by, for example, Nikolai Trubetzkoy. Subjects are beyond the scope of this article.
Teach
Minimum couples were an important part of the theory of pronunciation teaching during its development in the structuralist linguistic period, particularly in the 1940s and 1950s, and minimal pairwise exercises were widely used to train students to distinguish between target language phonemes. However, the authors then criticized the approach as artificial and less relevant to the needs of language learners.
Some authors state that learners tend not to hear the difference between phones if the difference is not a phonemic difference. One of the objectives of the contrastive analysis of the language sound system is to identify possible points of difficulty for language learners that will arise from differences in the phoneme inventory between the original language and the target language. However, experimental evidence for this claim is difficult to find, and claims should be treated with caution.
See also
- Minimum pair in Phoneme
References
Bibliography
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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