English long vowels, diphthongs, triphthongs Lecture 3

Long and short vowels a З: a

Long vowels

diphthongs While the position of the tongue is more or less stable for a pure vowel… … a diphthong is characterised by a graceful movement from one point to another, for this reason they are also sometimes known as glides.

This is also visible on a spectrogram: this is the pure vowel /a/…

…and this is the diphthong / aı/ …and this is the diphthong / aı/. Notice how the formants (the dark bands) separate towards the end.

diphthongs Movement/glide from one vowel to another From constant/pure vowel to another vowel 1st part longer and stronger 2nd part shorter and quieter 8 diphthongs; 2 groups: centring and closing ending in /∂/ ending in / I /ʊ/

English diphthongs may cause difficulty Nowhere is the English spelling system more bizarre than in its representation of diphthongs

First we will look at the closing group… … the ‘pay’, ‘ made’, ‘maid’, ‘reign’, ‘obey’, sound Then we have the ‘I’, ‘my’, ‘tie’, ‘sigh’, ‘either’, ‘eye’, ‘Thai’, sound Then there is ‘boy’, ‘choice’ Then ‘down’, ‘loud’ To end the closing group, the most common diphthong in English, that of ‘no’, ‘know’,‘bone’, ‘foam’, ‘sew’, ‘though’, ‘don’t’, ‘foe’, ‘crow’

Then ‘air’, ‘where’, wear’, ‘care’, ‘heir’: To start with the centring group, we have the most common, that of ‘clear’, ‘deer’, ‘here’, ‘wier’: Then ‘air’, ‘where’, wear’, ‘care’, ‘heir’: Finally, there is a diphthong which is quite rare and is often realised as /כּ:/ - ‘tour’, ‘poor’:

triphthongs The most complex English vowel-type sounds A glide from one vowel to another and then to a third one Produced rapidly and without interruption Composed of: closing diphthongs + /∂/ /eı/ /aı/ /כּı/ /∂ʊ/ /aʊ/ + /∂/ layer liar royal lower hour