Re: triphthongs (was: Bisyllabic or Disyllabic?)

At 07:24 11.8.2000 +0100, Raymond Brown wrote:
> >and some interpret the combinations in English
> >words like <fire> as them also.  (This last varies by dialect, however.)
>
>It does, and where it occurs it's an odd triphthong - it so it is - in that
>the vocalic nucleus comes first anf they are, allegedly, two semivocalic
>codas [aI@] with the [I@] both being semivocalic.  I'm inclined myself,
>however, to regard this a disyllabic when all the sounds are pronounced,
>ie. [aI-@].  In practice IME in non-rhotic dialects in Britain, it either
>becomes [a@] or even [A:] or, not infrequently quite clearly disayllabic
>[aIj@].
JC Wells wrote that _fire_ == [faI@ > fa@ > fa:]
so that there actually arises a phoneme /a:/ distinct from /A:/ in /fa:D@/,
unlike _tower_: [tAU@ > tA@ > tA:] which becomes homophonous with _tar_
because /AU/ starts out with a more back vowel than /aI/.

As for the phonemic status of [a:] my criteria for "phonemic" are somewhat
different than the Brit School's -- especially if we're to assume all
accents of Standard English share the same underlying phonology.  I'm
prepared to accept [A:] in _father_ as phonemically /&@/; the problem would
be with speakers like And Rosta, who have [&:] distinct from [&] -- p&nt
(verb) vs. p&:nt (noun) on And's own evidence.  Perhaps [A:] in _father_
can then be taken as /^@/, with the [3:] of _nurse_ as /^r/ vs. unstrtessed
_-er_ /@r/, so that _father_itself is /'f^@D@r/.  The problem is that for
most Americans there is no distinction other than stress between the _u_s
of _unnumbered_ [@'n@mb,rd] /^'n^mb@rd/ anymore than between _a_ and _u_ in
_a number_ [@'n@mb,r] /&'n^mb@r/.



/BP 8^)>
--
  B.Philip Jonsson mailto:bpX@netg.se mailto:melrochX@mail.com (delete X)
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