In phonetics, 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 [e] and [i] do in fact represent distinct phonemes /e/ and /i/. The phones do not have to be vowels, as the English minimal pair of "pat" + "bat" shows. In fact, this pair only differs in vocalization of the initial consonant as the configuration of the mouth is same for [p] and [b].
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.
Examples
Pairs Differentiating Phonemes
Following pairs prove existence of various distinct phonemes in English.
pin bin /p/ and /b/
rot lot /r/ and /l/
zeal seal /z/ and /s/
bin bean // and /i/
pen pan /ɛ/ and /æ/
hat had /t/ and /d/
On the other hand, phones [p] in "spin" and [ph] in "pin" are both allophones of the phoneme /p/ and no minimal pair can be found to distinguish them. Languages like Cantonese, Mandarin and Thai distinguish between them and they represent distinct phonemes /p/ and /ph/.
Here is a minimal set in French:
cire wax
sûre sure
soeur sister
sieur sir
sueur sweat
To an Anglophone, some or all of these sound alike, because the [ö] and [ü] sounds do not exist in English. A minimal triplet of consonants is
bête noire [betnwar] black beast, pet peeve
baie noire [benwar] black berry (not blackberry, which is mûre)
baignoire [beñwar] bathtub
[tn] is not a single phoneme in French, so this shows a minimal pair between the presence and absence of [t] next to [n], which shares its point of articulation. [n] and [ñ] 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:
qara' (קרא) read, call
qara` (קרע) tear apart
kara` (כרע) kneel
In the following two Hebrew verbs, the only distinction is a velar stop, in the middle of the first word:
lir'oth (לראות) to see
liroth (לירות) to 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/.
Pairs Differentiating Chronemes
Latin did have and Hungarian and Italian do have distinctive length of consonants. A differentiator for length is called a chroneme. E.g. in Italian
pina pine
pinna fin
Latin did have and Hungarian, German and Thai do have distinctive vowel length, e.g. in Thai (and compare this example also to the one on tone)
khǎo (เขว) short, rising tone: he/she
khǎ:o (ขาว) long, rising tone: white
khâo (เข้ว) short, falling tone: enter
khâ:o (ข้าว) long, falling tone: rice
khào (เข่ว) short, low tone: knee
khà:o (ข่าว) long, low tone: news
Pairs Differentiating Tonemes
Languages such as Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and Thai, but also for instance Serbo-Croatian, Norwegian and Lithuanian have distinctive tone. (See: melodic accent and tonal language.) For example in Thai:
khǎ:o (ขาว) rising tone: white
khâ:o (ข้าว) falling tone: rice
khà:o (ข่าว) low tone: news
Pairs Differentiating Stress
Spanish and Italian have many minimal pairs differing only in stress. Dutch has several, e.g. (stress indicated by acute accent)
voorkómen prevent
vóórkomen occur
External Links
Minimal pairs for English RP — examples for all phoneme pairs in British Received Pronunciation
