My regular reader may have noticed that I’ve been playing fast and loose with the definition of minimal pairs recently. Or rather, that I’ve been using the definition “easily confused words in which only one sound is different” in ways that is not common, for example with my list of minimal pairs for the typical Korean/ Japanese/ Brazilian/ etc problem of edge/ edgy, sponge/ spongy etc.
I think I’m justified in just popping these in with the rest of the EnglishClub minimal pairs lists, seeing how cage/ cagey matches my definition and seems to have more impact on comprehension than more traditional lists I’ve put up there like raw/ law. That really is “I think” rather than “I know”, however, and I’m not the only one with those lingering doubts. Me and the editor of EnglishClub would therefore like to hear your opinions, e.g. on these questions:
– Is that the correct definition of minimal pairs?
– Does barge/ bargy etc match the correct definition?
– Either way, does including a less traditional list like this need some explanation, or would that just make people suspicious of the list and so just push them back towards ship/ sheep?
Comments below please, and/ or follow the tag below for more stuff on minimal pairs.
TEFLtastic 
If you look at my Minimal Pairs reference page, you will see that I have included that as one of several open questions (Point 4 below). Here is the relevant section:
1: Can there be a minimal pair contrast between a vowel and a consonant? Theory would suggest not, since vowels and consonants have different functions in syllable structure. However, one can find pairs such as screen/serene which appear to contrast /k/ and /ə/, but then the syllable count and stress pattern seem to make such pairs differ by more than one sound. The dictionary is now being searched for such pairs, and the results are included in the “cons” column in the vowel tables and the “vowel” column in the consonant tables.
2: Related to the previous question is the problem of syllabic versus non-syllabic consonants. Is the contrast beween name and same of the same type as the contrast between button and butts? The computer program treats them as a minimal pair, though ordinary perception would deny it.
3:The so-called dark -l is a particular problem in this respect. It often seems to be intermediate between syllabic and non-syllabic in function. Take the pair dial/file. These would appear to be both monosyllables and a minimal pair. But the pair dialling/filing no longer seem to be minimal. The -l in dialling remains a dark -l and makes the form into a three-syllable word, while the -l in filing becomes a clear -l so that the word has two syllables. This difference seems to be largely driven by the spelling.
4: Can we admit minimal pairs where a sound is paired with a null? For example, could back and bank be a minimal pair? If so, the inventory of pairs would become much larger. I have begun to list these pairs, and they are shown in the “null” columns in the tables.
5: In some cases the inflected forms of a base pair such as seep and scene appear to be non-minimal. Where the pronunciation /sip/ and /sin/ have only one difference, the -s ending turns them into /sips/ and /sinz/, apparently showing two differences. Some research carried out by Merwyn Torikian under my supervision in 1992 used sound analysis software to investigate this and found that the physical difference in the inflections is insignificant. In the case of pairs like docks/dogs or seeps/scenes, the whole syllable is affected by the voicing or devoicing, but the final /s/ or /z/ shows up on a spectrogram as almost identical. Therefore all such pairs (including past tense endings) have been added to the lists. This does lead to an anomaly in the case of the /t/ versus /n/ contrast, since a word like wits enters pairs with wins and wince. The interesting point here is that the wins/wince contrast is not so much between /z/ and /s/ as between a fully voiced /ɪn/ and a partially devoiced /ɪn/.
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Thanks John, a very useful and impressively detailed comment – and the very same can be said about your amazing minimal pairs page.
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