ah/ awe

[Tom Zurinskas]

Alice,

You got me on the y-offglide.  I understand a y-glide.  What's an off-glide.
  I hear no y-glide (as in muse) in "right" as spoken in m-w.com.

> > I'd say the folks in CN say long i as in "right" just as the lady in
> > m-w.com
> > does.
> > But then thats all we're talking about hear.  Does she say it as a
> > diphthong
> > or two phthongs.

>I just listened. It's an unambiguous diphthong, just as we've described
>it. The /y/ offglide is clearly audible. The onset is a scosh higher
>than the onset in RIDE, but not enough to call it Canadian Raising. As
>would be expected, there is no hiatus (break) between the two vowel
>sounds, just a continuous movement.
>
> >
> > We should get a sprectrographs on this.  Grab the words from m-w.com of
> > "sight" "sot" and "seat".  Then see if the graph of those vowel sounds
>are
> > in the word "right."  I would venture they are not there.

>Every spectrograph I have ever seen of words (produced by non-southern
>speakers) like this shows diphthongal formant movement.

If you get a chance check this one out.

Tom Z

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