ah/ awe

[Tom Zurinskas]

>From: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>
> >Words /light, sight, might/ have one phthong as I hear them in m-w.com.
> >
>Um, no.  I just checked and they're all definitely diphthongs (or
>two-phthongs if you insist), with a vowel nucleus beginning with /a/
>and ending with /i/.  For them to be monophthongs, they'd be
>homonymous with "lot", "sot", and "mott" as you've indicated you
>pronounce the latter set of words ("ah", not "awe").  They are indeed
>pronounced that way in some areas of the southern U.S., but not by
>the m-w.com sot...er, site.

Sorry.  Have to disagree.  I really hear no ah-ee transition in those words.
    Can't even fascinate that I hear "ah" in there at all.  It's just one
solid sound all the way through.  Now "fire" and "file" have transition
issue and could be two syllables "fie'er" and "fie'ool" (ool as in wool).
But "fight" has a long i that to me is a solid sound all the way through as
I hear it in m-w.com, and the way I say it as well.

Tom Z

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