Minimal Pairs Options

In a search result word list, a group of minimal pairs is a set of rows for which the phonetic data is similar in the search environments.

To specify the options for the search environments, do the following:

  1. On a search result tab, click Minimal Pairs Options .

    A drop-down box appears.

  2. To specify which part of the search environment must be identical in each group, do one of the following:

  3. To specify which characters in search environments can be ignored or must be identical in each group, do any of the following:

See Also: Search Options.

  1. Click Apply.

Examples of options and environments

If you select the check box, the following environments are in the same group:

Check box

Environment

Environment

Ignore Diacritics

ë_ö

e_o

Ignore Stress/Syllable

wa'_i.ke

wa_ike

Ignore Tone

é_ó

e_o

Ignore Length

n:_#

n_#

Important - Known Issue

Currently, the way the Minimal Pairs feature functions in Phonology Assistant, the program may produce pairs that are not phonologically minimal. For example, when searching for t/d minimal pairs, Phonology assistant would produce the following list:

[te] 'take' and [de] 'find', which are phonological minimal pairs. But [tu] ‘make’ and [tu] ‘touch’, which are homophones, would also be produced. The only "contrastive" unit is semantic, which is not what the researcher is necessarily looking for.

Related Topics

Search Result Tab Groups overview