Re: triphtong
| From: | Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, June 25, 2005, 12:54 |
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Hi!
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.
**Henrik
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