Re: triphtong

> Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> writes:
> >...
> > The triphthong, when used, in _fire_ is a falling one; the vowel is
> > /a/ (or some similar low, central vowel) then the tongue glides
> > towards [I] before moving to the central [@] position. Triphthongs
> > more typically IMO begin are a combo of rising diphthong & falling
> > diphthongs and better examples are Italian words like: _suoi_ "his/
> > her" (masc.pl.) and _miei_ "my" (masc.pl.)
>
> Ah, yes, those are triphthongs indeed!  Now that you say it, Mandarin
> has a few: e.g. -[wEI] in 'shui' - 'water' (|ui| is a misleading
> spelling) and -[waI] in 'kuai' etc.
I have trouble considering these diphthongs, because I don't like to
regard onsets as part of the diphthong. The Italian pronunciation I
learned pronounces these as [swoI] and [mjeI], and the onset glides
don't seem like they should count towards triphthongality :).
Otherwise, "swine" has a diphthong.

OTOH, Thai does have honest-to-goodness triphthongs, with the
combinations [i@u] and [u@i]. The Thai speakers I've heard
consistently stress the first element of that sequence, but do not
make it two-syllables.


--
JS Bangs
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http://jaspax.com

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