Re: THEORY: NATLANGS: Phonology and Phonetics: Tetraphthongs, Triphthongs, Diphthongs

Philip Newton skrev:
> On 5/26/06, Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...> wrote:
>
>> What are some examples of diphthongs in which neither vowel is [i] or [u]
>> (or [j] or [u])?
>
>
> Finnish /y2/?
>
> German has |eu, äu| which I think is something like /OY/.
>
Norwegian has |au| which is [&u\].
Icelandic has |au| which is [9y], but phonemically
it is probably /9i/.
Old English had |ea| = [&A] and [&:A], or possibly [&@], [&:@];
and |eo| = [e@] and [e:@] or [e7] and [e:7].  It also had
|io| which was probably [i(:)u] and |ie| which may have been
[i(:)y], or IMO more probably  [i(:)@].
I dare not put these in slashes -- there being no recordings from
the tenth century --, but as likely as not the spellings are an
accurate phonemization, save in |io| which was so spelled because
|iu| was an early spelling for /y(:)/.
--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se

    "Maybe" is a strange word.  When mum or dad says it
    it means "yes", but when my big brothers say it it
    means "no"!

                            (Philip Jonsson jr, age 7)