Tuesday 8 January 2019

Minimal pairs: /ɔː/, /ɜː/ and /əʊ/

Ex. 1 Look at the following words containing the vowel 1. /ɔː/, 2. /ɜː/ and find their counterparts containing the diphthong /əʊ/.

a. boar/bore, call, called, corpse, door, floor, gnaw, morn/mourn, prawn, raw/roar, soar/sore, stork, tore

b. Bert, burn, curt, earn, earth, fir, girl, hurl, learn, nurse, perk, sir, stern, turn, were

Ex. 2 How does the 'silent -e' change the pronunciation of the following words?

cod - code, cop - cope, hop - hope, mop-mope, ton-tone

KEY
1. a. bow, coal, cold, copes, dough, Flo/floe/flow, know/no, moan, prone, roe, so, stoke, toe
b. boat, bone, coat, own, oath, foe, goal, hole, loan/lone, nose, poke, sew/so, stone, tone, woe

2. In the first four words the letter <o> stands for /ɒ/ on its own and in ton it is /ʌ/, but when there is a silent <-e>, the vowel is /əʊ/.

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