Minimal Pair List Consonants /Ɵ/ versus /z/, 73 pairs
The /Ɵ/ sound is spelled with <th>. The /z/ sound is spelled with <s> or <se> or <z> in zinc .
The /Ɵ/ is a voiceless dental fricatives. /z/ is a voiced sibilant, fairly close in the mouth. The contrast is not a great problem, and there are in any case rather few pairs. A good many are accounted for by the pairing of ordinal numbers and plural forms for the numerals 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 100. I have left in the archaic doth and saith , though they hardly figure in modern speech outside church contexts.
The mean density value is 0.7%. The list makes 71 semantic distinctions, a loading of 97%.
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