The English words "pill" and "lip" have the same phonemes in reverse order.
However, it is not possible to create one from the other by time-reversal (i.e.
like running a tape backwards). This is most obvious for the /l/ sounds: dark in
"pill" and light in "lip". The /p/ sounds are also different (aspirated in "pill"
and unreleased in "lip"), though this does not come out so clearly in the time-reversed
versions.
See Ladefoged (2005, p. 72, recording 8.1) for a similar example.
Normal
Time-reversed
pill
lip
pill
lip
Audio Source:
Institute of Phonetics and Speech Processing, LMU Munich.
References
Ladefoged, P. (2005): Vowels and consonants: an introduction to the sounds of languages. Malden: Blackwell.
