Re: Rising/Falling diphthongs

On Friday, November 12, 2004, at 04:53 , Tristan Mc Leay wrote:

> Roger Mills wrote:
[snip]

>> 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'.
Yep - I have [I@] and [U@]

> Though many non-rhotic Englishes have also monophthongised these
Yep - _bear_ is [bE:]       :)

> 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.
Yes, that is how I have always understood the terms. Therefore, I call [I@
], [U@], and [e@] falling diphthongs.

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com
===============================================
Anything is possible in the fabulous Celtic twilight,
which is not so much a twilight of the gods
as of the reason."      [JRRT, "English and Welsh" ]

Reply