Phoneme inventories

The above in fact shows the most accepted way of determining the phoneme inventory for a language. This is based on the principle of the minimal pair, and in effect says that if one can find two distinct words (such as rush and lush) that differ only in one sound, then those sounds... 

Here we will adopt the standard approach of using the principles of minimal pairs and phonetic similarity to develop a phoneme inventory (see Section 7.3.2). This is not an exact procedure and... 

Figure 8.2 Definition of British English MRPA phoneme inventory, with example words...

In both the TIMIT and MRPA phoneme inventories, we have only used lower case letters. To some extent this is a purely aesthetic issue as we wish to avoid upper case (which has a somewhat aggressive quality) and mixed case (which can look ugly). There is an additional benefit in that upper case equivalents of the symbols can be used in cases where some emphasis is required, such as stress or other highlighting. In the above, we have chosen though to give simple mnemonic names to each phoneme, so that the first phoneme of tip is named t , the first of ship is named sh and so on. Mnemonic names are usually helpful as we often have to enter words in the lexicon ourselves or perform transcriptions, and this is easier if we can easily recall the symbols to use. These names can sometimes trip us up, especially with vowels, so a little care should be taken. 

Phoneme inventories can be designed using the principles of phonetic similarity and minimal pairs. 

Definition of modified TIMIT phoneme inventory for General American, with example... 

In both the TIMET and the MRPA phoneme inventories, we have used exclusively lower-case letters. To some extent this is a purely aesthetic issue since we wish to avoid upper case (which has a somewhat aggressive quahty) and mixed case (which can look... 

Table B.1 The modified TiMiT phoneme inventory for Generai American, with exampie words...

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