8、Phonemic contrast, complementary distribution, and minimal pair
音位对立、互补分布、最小对立对
Phonetically similar sounds might be related in two ways. They might form a contrast if they are two distinctive phonemes, or they do not form a contrast in meaning if they are allophones of the same phoneme.
相似的语音之间可能有两种关系。两个相似的语音如果是两个区别性音位，它们在意义上形成对立，如果是同一音位的变体，在意思上不形成对立。
The former is called phonemic contrast, they can occur in the same environments and they distinguish meaning.
音位对立是指不同音位之间的关系，它们可以出现在不同的语音组合的同一位置，产生意义差别，如rope和robe中的/p/和/b/。
The latter is called complementary distribution; they are two allophones of the same phoneme. They only occur in different environments.
互补分布是指音位变体之间的关系，同一个音位的不同变体在语音组合中永远不会出现在相同的位置上，它们没有区别意义的作用，如top中的送气的[p]和stop中不送气的[p]。
A basic way to determine the phonemes of a language is to see if substituting one sound for another one results in a change of meaning. If it does, the two sounds then represent different phonemes. An easy way to do this is to find the minimal pairs.
确定一种语言的音位的一个基本途径是，看如果用一个语音代替另一个是否会产生不同的意义。如果产生了，那么这两个语音就代表不同的音位。为此，一个简单的办法就是找出最小对立对。
When two different forms are identical in every way except for one sound segment which occurs in the same place in the strings, the two words are said to form a minimal pair.
最小对立对是指除了出现在同一位置上的一个音之外其余都相同的两个语音组合，如[pen]和[ben]。