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(YAEPT?) Pattern exemplifying as many vowel phonemes as possible?

From:Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Date:Wednesday, December 12, 2007, 14:30
What pattern (in the sense C_C or similar, where _ is a blank to be
filled in) can be used to exemplify as many vowel phonemes as
possible, to demonstrate the contrastiveness?

The best I've come up with so far is /b_t/, for which I can add vowels
to make the following words:

bit, bet, bat, bot, but, Baht (Thai currency), Bert, beat, bait,
bought, boat, boot, bite, bout

The only phonemes from the standard lexical sets that don't make words
- including "common" (FSVO) proper nouns - is FOOT, CHOICE, NEAR,
SQUARE, and CURE: no *boot with "short" /U/, *boit, *biert, *bairt,
*boort. (START and NORTH merge with PALM and THOUGHT, respectively,
for me, so "Bart" = "Baht", and *bort would be pronounced the same as
"bought".)

Are there better patterns than /b_t/?

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>

Replies

Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>
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