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.