White Flag -- "rythm", no vowel in

[Paul Johnston]

When an <ee> and a <y> (or <oo> and <w>) is a vowel or a consonant depends entirely on position within a syllable.  If it's a peak, it's a vowel.  If it's an onset, it's a consonant.  Linguists are divided about what it is in a coda (or whether it's really a 2nd element of a diphthong, and therefore part of the peak).  Trager & Smith phonemicized it as a consonant, as do most American phonologists.  I'm American, but British-trained, so I tend to think of the last sound in know as an /u/ (or even a /U/) and toy as an /i/ (or even a /I/).

The Arabic and Hebrew writing systems treat /i:/ and /j/ and /u:/ and /w/ as identical, as did Classical Latin, for that matter.

Paul Johnston
On Mar 20, 2012, at 12:44 AM, Larry Sheldon wrote:

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> Poster:       Larry Sheldon <LarrySheldon at COX.NET>
> Organization: Maybe tomorrow
> Subject:      Re: White Flag  -- "rythm", no vowel in
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 3/19/2012 8:20 PM, Ronald Butters wrote:
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>> Society<ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> Poster:       Ronald
>> Butters<ronbutters at AOL.COM> Subject:      Re: White Flag  -- "rythm",
>> no vowel in
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> This is not something that a linguist would say, really. It confuses
>> spelling and pronunciation, for one thing. I think the schoolmarms
>> and -masters  were thinking of the<y>  in "yes" as a "consonant,"
>
> Interesting.  When I say it and think about what I'm doing "yes" sounds
> like (exaggerated a bit) eee  eh sss.  [I need to learn an official way
> of recording phonemes if I am going to hang around here.]
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