GROUP 3

Adeliana
Febe Batubara
Kristiana Yuliani
Silvia Chusnul Chotimah
Ririn Maftukhatul Jannah
Minimal Pairs, Features, and Allophones
MINIMAL PAIRS
Minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in
a particular language, which differ in only one
phonological and have distinct meanings.

They are used to demonstrate that two
phones constitute two separate phonemes in
the language.


When there is a difference between two
otherwise identical strings of sound and this
difference results in a change of meaning, this
two strings are said to constitute a minimal
pairs.

One can safely say that the phonemes of a
given language form a system in which they
are all opposed to one another. Take English
/p/ :

/p/ is opposed to /b/ as in /pg/ : /bg/ pig : big

/p/ is opposed to /t/ as in /pi:/ : /ti:/ pea : tea

/p/ is opposed to /d/ as in /pg/ : /dg/ pig : dig

/p/ is opposed to /k/ as in /pt/ : /kt/ pat : cat

/p/ is opposed to /n/ as in /pt/ : /nt/ pit : knit


FEATURES
Feature is phonetic property that can be used to
classsify sounds.
Some of the features required for classifying English
segments.



Allophones is one set of multiple possible
spoken sounds or phones used to pronounce
a single phonemes (Wikipedia)

[p
h
] as in pin and [p] as in spin are allophones
for the phoneme /p/ in English Language.





Substituting one allophone for another
allophone of the same phoneme
, just different
pronunciation of the same word.

Consider the word stop. If you say the
word several times, you will probably
notice that sometimes the final /p/
contains more aspiration and sometimes
less.

EXAMPLE
[lil]
[litl]
[lil]
little
SOUND
There are two types of allophones:


Complementary
Distribution
Free variation
Free variation
free variation = allophonic variation
independent of the phonetic environment the
phoneme occurs in random interchangeability.




Another example is from old song in 1930s

You say either (ir) and I say (aIr)
You say neither (nir) and I say (naIr)
(ir) (aIr) (nir) (naIr)
Lets call the whole thing off

Complementary Distribution
Complementary distribution = allophonic variation
dependent on the phonetic environment the phoneme
occurs in.
The using of [p] and [p
h
] in word pool
[pul] inccorect; [p
h
ul] correct
Top [t
h
ap] at the beggining of stressed
Stop [stap] after [s]
Butter[brr] before unstressed
Button[bn] before [n]





SOUND
SOUND
SOUND
SOUND
SOUND
The allophones of a phoneme form a set
of sounds that (1) do not change the
meaning of a word, (2) are all very
similar to one another, and (3) occur in
phonetic contexts different from
another.
References
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimal_pair [Accessed April 5
th
, 2014]
Ladefoget,P.(1982). A Course in Phonetics. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich, 2nd edition.
Ladefoged, P. & K. Johnson (2011). A course in Phonetics. Wadsworth 6th
edition. Available: http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/allophonetrm.htm
[Accessed March 31
st
, 2014]
Gramley, Vivian (2009). Phonemes and Allophones. Available: http://www.uni-
bielefeld.de/lili/personen/vgramley/teaching/HTHS/phonemes.html
[Accessed March 31
st
, 2014]
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allophone [Accessed March 31
st
, 2014]
http;//faculty.washington.edu/lauramcg/courses/ling451/notes/w2_2_rules.p
df [Accessed April 1
st
, 2014]
www.uni-bielefeld.de/lili/personen/vgramley/teaching/HTHS/phonemes.html
[Accessed April 1
st
, 2014]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi6YHxesKkI&feature=youtube_gdata_pl
ayer [Accessed April 4
th
, 2014]

Thank You