Re: Rising/Falling diphthongs

Roger Mills wrote:

>I found an old msg. of Trebor Jung's concerning this terminology, which was
>never properly answered, and got to wondering:
>
>Are things like [aj] [oj] [iw] etc. (Vowel +glide) called "falling
>diphthongs"?  I believe they are.
>
>Converserly, then, [ja] [jo] [we] are called "rising" diphthongs, I believe.
>
>AIUI, it's the Vowel > glide vs glide > vowel makeup that's the determining
>factor, rather than the articulatory positions of the vowel/glide
>components. One could, after all, envision diphthongs with _central/low_
>glides-- [i_@, @_o]; Thai IIRC has diphthongs like [1_a] (high central V +
>low glide).
>
>
No need to envision it! Many non-rhotic Englishes have a diphthong
(like) [I@)] in words like 'beard', [e@)] in 'bear', [U@)] in 'pure'.
Though many non-rhotic Englishes have also monophthongised these or
turned them into two separate syllables or both or some combination of
the three. But yeah, as I understand it, it's falling if the nucleus of
the diphthong is the first element, rising if the nucleus is the second
element.

PS: the bracket method for tiebars is equally appropriate for consonants
as diphthongs---but then, you went off and used the XSampa [1] for CXS
[i\], so I suppose you're not using CXS anyway...

--
Tristan.

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