Re: Diphthongs (was Re: 3 q's - X-Sampa)

On Mon, 9 Feb 2004 John Cowan <cowan@...> wrote:
> I suspect that that is [jaj wow aja we: ao awa aja je], though.
  I don't think so. As far as I know, every vowel forms a separate
syllable, there're no diphthogues at all, moreover, /u/ and /w/ are
two separate phonemes in Kiribatese. It's possible that "gliding
consonants" -- like weak [j], [h], [w], [?] (I don't know the
actual Kiribatese behaviour) -- is inserted into the hiatusses,
like *[ijaji huowu ... ije]. But hiatusses need not filled by all
means, in Hungarian there're positions where they can be "empty".