Minimal Pair List Consonants /ð/ versus /ŋ/, 7 pairs
The /ð/ sound is spelled with <th>. The /ŋ/ sound is spelled with <ng>.
This is a contrast between a dental fricative and a velar nasal continuant, both voiced. It can only occur medially or finally. Although the individual sounds may not occur or may have restricted environments in many languages, the contrast does not cause problems.
Since /ŋ/ is a fairly common sound while /ð is rare, the mean density value is low at 0.1%. The list makes 4 semantic distinctions, a loading of 57%.
gather ganger
gathers gangers
slither slinger
slithers slingers
whither winger
withers wingers
with wing
.
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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.
