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

>Date:         Fri, 30 Jan 2004 10:34:33 -0700
>From: Muke Tever <hotblack@...>
>Subject:      Re: 3 q's - X-Sampa
>
>
>E fésto Trebor Jung <treborjung@...>:
>> Merhaba!
>>
>> How do you write diphthongs - as (e.g.) /ai/ or /aj/?
>
>What you put between the phonemic slashes // depends on how the phonemic
>system of the language is represented:  you could put /ai/ or /aj/
>depending on how that offglide patterns.  For the phonetic brackets you'd
>put down whatever the actual sound is, which might be [j] or [I_^] (i.e.,
>non-syllabic [I]) or whatnot.
Are there any natural languages that make the difference, having both /aj/
and /ai/? Or /aw/ and /au/?


I'm asking because I have a problem with my conlang's ortography which I
haven't been able to solve.
I have been spelling differently diphthongs in words like _kai_ "winter"
and _loj_ "finger" although I can't hear any difference between the final
sounds, and the ortography is supposed to be rabidly phonemic. Every time
I try to change them either to _kai_ and _loi_ or _kaj_ and _loj_, however,
the language resists - it says that there's a difference, one's plural should
be /kai.e/ (or /kaj.e/) and the other's /lo.je/.

I now think it would probably make most sense to say that both indeed end
in the same sound and that their plurals are simply irregular, but I was
wondering if there was a way to save the i/j and u/w distictions in other
words where they can't be followed by a vowel morpheme.


>        *Muke!
>--

- M. Astrand


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