USAGE: ei and ej (was: Front vowel tensing)

>>And is there a difference between /ej/ and /ei/?
>>
>
> Yes:  /ej/ is one syllable, /ei/ would be two-- _phonemically_ speaking.
> Compare /najf/ 'knife' vs. /naijv/ 'naïve'.  Or maybe /pej/ 'pay' vs. /peIN/
> 'paying'-- but we Americans would write the latter as /pejIN/ I think.
> British tradition would have /pe:/,  I'm not sure what they'd do with
> 'paying'.  /pe:IN/??

Anything to do with australian or british phonemics i've seen uses /ai/
as a single syllable. /naif/ vs /naiji:v/ is what i have, /p&i/ vs /p&ijIN/.
And, IME (experience), the brits use /eI/ for 'pay', unless they are
northern and use [e:].
And so its /peI/ vs /peIIN/, I think.


> Even in US phonemics, there were competing ways of representing the offglide
> or neutralization of vowels before /r/-- /fihr/ 'fear' springs to mind.  (If
> your dialect was truly r-less, you could simply write /fih/, contrasting
> with /fij/ 'fee'

And, in my aah-less dialect, its /fI@/ (and /fI:/ for some others) vs /fi:/

Does anyone really have a /h/ there, or did they just say 'what the hell, lets

shove a <h> in there for the fun of it'?

Tristan

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