Minimal Pair List Consonants /p/ versus /ʒ/, 3 pairs


   Minimal pair: Consonants /p/ versus /ʒ/, 3 pairs

The spelling of /p/ is <p> in this set. The /ʒ/ sound is spelled <ge> or <su>.

The contrast is between a voiceless stop and a voiced fricative, well separated in the mouth. It is unlikely to be a problem.

The consonant /p/ can occur in any position in the syllable, but /ʒ/ only occurs finally or intervocalically. /ʒ/ is in any case a very rare phoneme, found in only 334 words in the source dictionary. The figure for the mean density of this contrast is 3/7465, too small to signify, while the semantic loading is 100%, since there are no pairs which are inflections of the same root.

leopard leisured 
leper leisure 
loop luge

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