IPA diphthongs

Wed Apr 23 01:21:25 UTC 2008

I'll give it a try.  First, it might be useful to distinguish between a
diphthong and a vowel sequence.  American English "idea" has a vowel
sequence, and the last vowel, a schwa, is a separate syllable.  Southern
British "dear" has virtually the same sequence of vowel sounds, but it's one
syllable, and BE has falling diphthongs ending in /@/.  AmE r-ful varieties
don't.

When I teach phonetics, I make the same statement you had heard, that the
second element of the diphthong indicates direction of tongue movement
rather than endpoint, although this is a matter of degree and depends on
things like speech tempo and just where the second element is
articulatorily.  If the second element is a schwa or an /r/, then the tongue
is more likely to get pretty close to that position, simply because of where
it is.

Whether you transcribe the second element of a falling diphthong as /I, U/
or as /j, w/ is a matter of choice.  The difference between non-tonic /I,U/
and final /j, w/ is functional rather than formal.  They are for all
practical purposes the same sound, one used in a vocalic position and the
other in a consonant slot.  It just happens that we can notate them
differently depending on what we consider their function to be.  This is
more obvious with /r/, which has nearly the same position in the vowel space
as /@/.  We tend to think about it as a consonant, and it's hard sometimes
to convince a beginning student that it can also be a vowel.  As a vowel it
can be transcribed as schwar or as syllabic retroflex /r/.  I think most
people prefer the schwar, but for diphthongs /r/ gets used.

I can illustrate a number of features of AmE diphthongs from my SE Michigan
variety of Inland Northern.  I have a phonemic contrast between lowered and
raised /a-/ diphthongs.  In this particular case, the first element of the
diphthong will be either the inverted lower case print <a> or something
close to /@/.  They occur in their usual Canadian Raising environments, but
they contrast in open syllables and before /-nd/, so

/ha:I/ "elevated"
/h at I/ (greeting)
/ka:Ind/ "warm-hearted"
/k at Ind/ "variety"
/ba:U/ "front end of a boat"
/b at Uwa:U/ (sound a dog makes)
/ra:Und/ "circular, spherical"
/r at Und/ (preposition)

Notice that the raised diphthongs are shorter, as CR predicts, even though
they occur where CR would predict the lowered diphthong.

Similarly, I have

/ba:rd/ "banned" (preterit of  "bar")
/b at rd/ "poet"

I have quite a few minimal pairs like these, but what they all seem to have
in common is that the two forms always come from different lexical
categories.  Clearly it's a partial phonemic contrast since it doesn't occur
in all environments.

Back to whether to represent the second element with a vowel or glide for a
moment.   The choice depends on the point you want to make.  I tend to use
/I/ and /U/ for those diphthongs and /r/ for the /r/ diphthongs. If I'm
comparing Upper South and Lower North pronunciations of "drive," I'll use
the vowel variant so that I can more clearly demonstrate the lowering found
in the Upper South (and Lower South) diphthong.  Central Indiana speakers
have /draIv/ while Southern Indiana speakers have /draav/, where the vowel
quality is low central, not back.  I can't show that change as clearly if I
use the consonantal option.

What makes the /r/ diphthongs distinct from vowel + /r/ codas, at least in
my speech, is that they start with vowels that I have only in diphthongs.
/a/ (lower mid central) does not occur as a monophthong, and open <o> also
occurs only in the diphthongs /OI/ and /Or/ and never as a monophthong.
Where many varieties of AmE have monophthongal /O/, mine has the low back
rounded vowel.

Herb

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 12:39 AM, LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: IPA diphthongs
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Oh, come on guys, at least have *some* things to say!
>
> Randy
>
> On Sat, Apr 19, 2008 at 10:51 PM, LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       LanDi Liu <strangeguitars at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      IPA diphthongs
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > In the Sophia, Maria / what do pros do thread, Damian Hall said:
> >
> > > No, we don't as far as I (white, 30s, Londoner) am aware, except in
> the stock
> > > phrase 'black Maria' for a police vehicle used to transport people
> from prison
> > > to court etc, which always has [m@ rai @].  And I'm not sure how many
> people
> > > would use _that_ any more, since it's losing what little transparency
> it still
> > > had:  'black Marias' are usually coloured white, and the 'Maria' part
> was never
> > > transparent (recently) anyway.  The girl's name is always [m@ ri: @],
> and it's
> > > always [a: vej m@ ri: @] for the Latin prayer, etc.
> >
> > I'm interested in people's thought's on IPA diphthong notation.
> >
> > Here, we see [ai] and [ej], and at the other extreme we sometimes see
> > [aI] and [eI] and even just [e].  Probably the latter ones are more
> > common, but I see them as less accurate.  I'm not too fond of the [j]
> > notation in vowels, because I see [j], [w], and [r] (used as in [rEd]
> > -- not the trill) as semi-plosives that feature opening movements
> > rather than closing movements, but I find them preferable to
> > diphthongs with [I] and [U] in American English.
> >
> > When I see [aI] and [eI], I hear RP, but with [ai] (or with the round
> > a) and [ei] I hear "General American", so when people use [aI]/[eI] to
> > transcribe American speech, it gives me a "this is wrong" kind of
> > sensation.
> >
> > I remember reading somewhere (this was a long time ago, so I have no
> > idea where; if it rings a bell, please speak up) that the second
> > character in a diphthong shows the direction of the diphthong, and not
> > the destination, and that which character is used is up to personal
> > preference.  I know that IPA is designed to be flexible, but I also
> > find it disconcerting that the IPA handbook doesn't give a clue on how
> > to transcribe or represent diphthongs.
> >
> > When I teach pronunciation here, I use [ɑi], [ei] [ou] (or [o̜u] to
> > contrast with the ), [oi], and [æu].  I avoid using [a] because it is
> > used to represent vowels all along the bottom of the vowel quadrangle,
> > and I want to be clear which vowels are more front and which are more
> > back.  Does anyone find this usage undesirable in any respect?
> >
> > --
> > Randy Alexander
> > Jilin City, China
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Randy Alexander
> Jilin City, China
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>