Minimal Pair List Consonants /ŋ/ versus /j/ or /w/, no pairs
Since /ŋ/ only occurs finally and follows short vowels, while the semivowels /j/ and /w/ only occur initially, the only possible contrasts would be medial and none are attested. The pairs
longer
(one who longs) and
lawyer
or
banger
and
buyer
are close, but with different vowels. I can't even get this close with /w/, though if you were to describe a desire for success in crooning love songs as a "Bing-itch", that would be a minimal contrast with
bewitch
, but obviously that is not in any dictionary that I know of.
.
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John Higgins
John Higgins retired in 2000, having spent the bulk of his career as a British Council English Language Officer working in Thailand, Turkey, Egypt and Yugoslavia and the last fifteen years in lectureships at Bristol University and then running an M.Sc. programme at Stirling University. His main field was EFL, with a special interest in CALL (computer-assisted language learning) in which, together with Tim Johns of Birmingham, he was responsible for important developments in methods and materials.
His publications include A Guide to Language Laboratory Material Writing, Universitetesforlaget, 1969, Computers and Language Learning, Collins, 1984, Language Learners and Computers, Longman, 1988, and Computers in English Language Learning, Intellect Press, 1992, together with numerous papers, reviews and pieces of software. He maintains a web page on minimal pairs and homographs for teachers of English pronunciation skills.
