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

On Thursday, February 12, 2004, at 04:03  PM, Roger Mills wrote:

> M. Astrand wrote:
>
> B.P.Jonsson wrote:
>>> I *think* the difference is that both halves of a
>>> Finnish diphthong are about equally long, whereas
>>> in Italian the unstressed part of the diphthong is
>>> much shorter.
>>
>> Do you think this has something to do with the unstressed part being
>> in
> Italian
>> i or u, ie. something close to j and w, whereas in Finnish it doesn't
>> need
>> to be a high vowel? I'm not sure what I'm getting at, but it seems
>> like it
>> could mean something.
>> Or does Italian have diphthongs with unstressed non-high vowels?
>
> No, but in addition to falling diphthongs (aj, aw) it has a few rising
> ones-- ja, je, jo, ju -- in words like chiaro, viene, piombo, chiuso.
> (Different historical origin, of course)
>>
>> On second thought, perhaps the same does *not* apply to Mamqian. It
>> seems
>> everything I considered to be a diphthong last time I looked into
>> them,
> has
>> an /i/, /u/ or /y/ either at the beginning or at the end. I've simply
> *assumed*
>> that all diphthongs are stressed on the first part,......
> Changing the stress to whichever part is not high
>> would change the sound of the language, but not to worse...
>>
> Some languages have falling (and I think rising)diphthongs with ï
> (barred-i
> [1]) and/or schwa-- Thai and Vietnamese spring to mind.
ObNumic: Colorado River Numic has falling diphthongs with [1]. From
Chemehuevi (this is the "official" orthography; <ü> is [1]):

aüga  'new, young'
ha'aü  'oh!'
kwaü  'in (time); ago; from now'
maü  'make'
paüpi 'blood'

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga
Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"I believe that phonology is superior to music. It is more variable and
its pecuniary possibilities are far greater." - Erik Satie