Minimal Pairs

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In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have a distinct meaning. They are used to demonstrate that two phones constitute two separate phonemes in the language.

As an example for English vowels, the pair "let" + "lit" can be used to demonstrate that the phones [ɛ] (in let) and [ɪ] (in lit) do in fact represent distinct phonemes /ɛ/ and /ɪ/. An example for English consonants is the minimal pair of "pat" + "bat". In phonetics, this pair, like any other, differs in a number of ways. In this case, the contrast appears largely to be conveyed with a difference in the voice onset time of the initial consonant as the configuration of the mouth is the same for [p] and [b]; however, there is also a possible difference in duration, which visual analysis using high quality video supports.^{[citation needed]}

Phonemic differentiation may vary between different dialects of a language, so that a particular minimal pair in one accent is a pair of homophones in another. This does not necessarily mean that one of the phonemes is absent in the homonym accent; merely that it is not present in the same range of contexts.

Definition
	A minimal pair is two words that differ in only one sound.

Examples (English)
	Sounds which differ: /p/ and /b/
	[lQp] ‘lap’ [lQb] ‘lab’

Allmorphoms

An allomorph is a different form of a Morpheme. The regular Simple Past ending is -ed. In the verb 'advised' the ending is pronounced /d/, but in 'walked' it is pronounced /t/ and in 'wanted' it is pronounced /i:d/. A verb ending in -e, like 'hire' only takes -d. These are different forms of the same thing; they are allomorphs of the simple past tense ending.

Contrast in analogous environment

Definition
	Contrast in analogous environments is the difference between two phonetically similar segments that occur in two separate words and have similar adjacent sounds.

Discussion
	If neither segment has been modified or affected by its environment, the segments are separate phonemes.

Examples (Kaiwa, Brazil)
	The segments [p] and [b] contrast in analogous environments in the following words:
	[opa] 'it is finished' [aba] 'place'
Definition
	Phonetically similar segments are two or more sounds which share phonetic features and are frequently found as variants of a single phonological unit in a language.

Discussion
	Most phonetically similar segments are adjacent to each other in a phone chart, and differ only slightly in one or two articulatory features.

Examples
	Here is a table that gives examples of phonetically similar segments and the difference between the given segments.
	The phonetically similar segments … Differ in … [p] and [b] voicing. [p] and [f] place of articulation and manner of articulation. [l] and [r] manner of articulation. [p] and [t] place of articulation.
Definition
	An environment is all the parts of an utterance that directly surround a given sound.

Discussion
	The environment of a sound may be adjacent sounds, or a break in sound, such as at the beginning or end of a syllable, word or phrase.

Example (English)
	Here is an example of the environment of the sound [Q] in the English word tap.
	·  word: [tHQp] ‘tap’ ·  environment: [tH…p]

Example (Spanish)
	Here is an example of the environment of the sound [o] in the Spanish word gato.
	·  word: [gAto] ‘cat’ ·  environment: [gat…#]
	(The symbol “#” represents the end of a word.

Complimentary

Complementary distribution in linguistics is the relationship between two different elements, where one element is found in a particular environment and the other element is found in the opposite environment. It often indicates that two superficially different elements are in fact the same linguistic unit at a deeper level. In some instances, more than two elements can be in complementary distribution with one another.

Contents [hide] 1 In phonology 2 In morphology 3 See also 4 References

In phonology

Main article: Allophone

Complementary distribution is commonly applied to phonology, where similar phones in complementary distribution are usually allophones of the same phoneme. For instance, in English, [p] and [pʰ] are allophones of the phoneme /p/ because they occur in complementary distribution. [pʰ] always occurs when it is the syllable onset and followed by a stressed vowel (as in the word pin). [p] occurs in all other situations (as in the word spin).
There are cases where elements are in complementary distribution, but are not considered allophones. For example in English [h] and [ŋ] (engma, written with the digraph <-ng> in English) are in complementary distribution, since [h] only occurs at the beginning of a syllable and [ŋ] only at the end. But because they have so little in common in phonetic terms they are still considered separate phonemes. ^[1]

In morphology

Main article: Allomorph

The concept of complementary distribution is applied in the analysis of word forms (morphology). Two different word forms (allomorphs) can actually be different "faces" of one and the same word (morpheme). For example, consider the English indefinite articles a and an. The usages an aardvark and a bear are grammatical. But the usages *a aardvark and *an bear are ungrammatical (marked with "*" in linguistics).

The form an is used "in the environment" before a word beginning with a vowel sound.

This linguistic environment can be notated as "__ V".

The form a is used in the environment before a word beginning with a consonant sound.

This can be notated as "__ C".

The "distribution" (usage according to environments) of the forms an and a is "complementary" because of three factors ---

(1) an is used where a is not used;

(2) a is used where an is not used;

(3) when you take the environment where an is used, and the environment where a is used, the two environments together cover every legitimate potential environment for the word.

The forms an and a function to work together like a team, in order to take care of every instance (environment) where the English indefinite article is needed. This is why we say that they are two different "forms" of the same "word", instead of saying that they are "two different words".