A minimal pair is two words where the pronunciation is identical except that one phoneme is different in one aspect. For this question, that aspect is that one has a voiced fricative and the other unvoiced. Fricatives are phonemes where the air flow through the mouth is not stopped, but rather just modified by the placement of the tongue and shape of the mouth. The voiced fricatives in English are /v ð z ʒ/ and the voiceless are /f θ s ʃ h/.
/h/ doesn’t have a corresponding voiced phoneme, so we can ignore that. /s/ and /z/ I expect to have quite a few. Off the top of my head, I can think of muscle/muzzle and sap/zap and I’m sure there are many more. /ð/ and /θ/ (both represented in writing by TH) only have two minimal pairs: thy/thigh and either/ether.
So what about the other two sets? Are there any minimal pairs for /f/ and /v/ and for /ʒ/ and /ʃ/? (Note: /ʃ/ is the SH sound; /ʒ/ is the ZH sound, although we don’t write it that way except in Russian names. It can be found in the middle of a number of words like decision, pleasure and seizure as well as the last sound in garage. It’s also part of what we think of as the J-sound /dʒ/.)
For me, the vowel “i” is also different in “five” and “fife.” “Fife” starts with a kind of “uh” sound to me and “five” starts with more of an “ah” sound before eliding into the second half of the diphthong.
That very well may be my accent, as wiktionary transcribes them the same in IPA. It’s the same sort of difference as in “writer” and “rider” in the way my long I is pronounced, so it must be some raising thing.
That seems to be true for the standard pronunciation of azure, but I’ve definitely encountered people who put the accent on the second syllable. I think it may be a valid alternative. If it is, that would work as a minimal pair.
That said, I have another one: “liege” and “leash.”
OK, thanks. I think we have enough f/v pairs. So far we only have liege/leash for the other, so any more for that one? (I don’t think I’ve heard ‘azure’ spoken out loud often enough say on that one, so I’m going by M-W and it has the accent on different syllables.)
Both of those sound like good ones. Although admittedly I never heard the word ‘louche’ before, so I’m going by M-W for that.
Well, I’m satisfied there are some ZH/SH pairs, so I don’t need more. I was pretty sure there were f/v ones before posting the OP (just having a brainfart), but I wasn’t sure about the other. Thanks everyone.
Funny how none of those additional ones are ever cited when this topic comes up. Not saying you’re wrong, it’s just that no one ever mentions them. Only the two I mentioned in the OP plus sometimes that “this’ll” thing that I was studiously ignoring (but should have figured someone would bring up anyway).
At any rate, thanks for the Aleutian/allusion pair.