Re: The fourteen vowels of English?

J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:

>On Sat, 4 Sep 2004 09:36:43 +0100, Joe <joe@...> wrote:
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>>J. 'Mach' Wust wrote:
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>>>Since you've included /Aj@/, why not include /aw@/ as in "sour"? Though I
>>>don't really understand why these are so often analyzed as one (compound)
>>>vowel sound and not as /Aj, aw/ + /@/.
>>>
>>>
>>They are a tripthong.  It's just the way they're pronounced, I
>>suppose.Both [Aj@] and [Aw@] are heading towards [A:], however, as is
>>the trend today(Monopthongising dipthongs/tripthongs).  Hence, /O:/,
>>/O@/ and /U@/ are merged in my dialect, what was originally [E@] is
>>[E:], and [I@] is quite often [I:]. (especially finally - ear, year).
>>
>>
>
>Triphthongs, yes, I have some trouble with this notion since to me, it feels
>very obvious that the three vowel sounds should be in the same syllable in
>order to form a triphthong, just like the two vowels of a diphthong must be
>in the same syllable in order to form a diphthong.
>
>I know that some speakers actually pronounce words like _fire, sour_ in one
>syllable, but I always suspect that these speakers don't have triphthongs. I
>think of the real triphthong pronunciation to be quite similar to the one of
>the German words _Haie, baue_ [haj@, baw@] (at least in the r-dropping
>dialects of English), and I think it's quite obvious that these German words
>are always considered to be compound of a diphthong + schwa.
>
>
Well, maybe that consideration is wrong.  Either way, I'd count them as
Tripthongs.

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>>>I guess you merge the sounds of "war" and "door"?
>>>
>>>
>>Almost everyone does.  And that of 'pour'.
>>
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>_war_: /wOr/, _door_: /dor/, _pour_: ???
>
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By 'almost everyone', I meant RP-ish people.  Sorry, I should have made
that clearer.  In Older people's RP:

war: /wO:/, door: /dO@/, pour: /pU@/

I think.