LINA01H3 Lecture 4: Lecture Four Notes
Document Summary
The vowels in words like boat and bait are dipthongs and are realized as [ow] and. The rationale behind [o] and [e] transcription for boat and bait is that the glide portion is a predictable detail. When o" comes before [r], there is no glide and you can transcribe it simply as [o] Segments that contrast with each other in a particular language are said to be phonemes of the language: phonemes are written in forward slashes - /p/ You can examine if two segments belong to different phonemes or not by conducting a minimal pair test. A minimal pair test consist of two forms with distinct meanings that differ by only one segment Sometimes you can"t find a perfect minimal pair because the language doesn"t have words matching a particular shape. In such cases you can use near minimal pairs to establish a phonemic contrast.
