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Re: Phonetics

From:Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
Date:Wednesday, March 22, 2006, 14:03
>OK, got it. Except . . . "non-syllabic vowel"? Isn't that something >like "bright darkness"?? > >
I assume by non-syllabic vowel he meant non-syllabic vocoid. A vocoid is a sound that satisfies the phonetic definition of a vowel, which may well be non-syllabic (syllabicity being a phonological notion). Examples of non-syllabic vocoids are [j], [w] and [r\]. The terminology is confusing because people use the words vowel and consonant in both phonetic and phonological senses, and they aren't always the same thing. That's why Pike proposed talking only about contoids (phonetic consonants), vocoids (phonetic vowels), and syllabicity (or lack thereof) to remove the confusion.