English phonetics and phonology (Peter Roach)
English phonetics and phonology (Peter Roach)
3 long vowels, diphthongs
3.1 Long and short vowels
To remind you that these vowels tend to be long, the symbols consist of one vowel symbol.
Plus a length mark made of two dots :. Thus we have: i:, з:, a:, o:, u:, will now look at each of these long vowels individually
i: (example words: ‘beat’, ‘mean’, ‘peace’)
з: (example words: ‘bird’, ‘fern’, purse’)
a: (example words: ‘card’, ‘half’, ‘pass’)
o: (example words: ‘board’, ‘torn’, ‘horse’)
u: (example words: ‘food’, ‘soon’, ‘loose’)
3.2 Diphthongs
BBC pronunciation has a large number of diphthongs, sounds which consist of a movement or glide from one vowel to another. A vowel which remains constant and does
not glide is called a pure vowel
Iə (example words: ‘beard’, ‘Ian’, ‘fierce’)
eə (example words: ‘aired’, ‘cairn’, ‘scarce’)
υə (example words: ‘moored’, ‘tour’)
eI (example words: ‘paid’, ‘pain’, ‘face’)
aI (example words: ‘tide’, ‘time’, ‘nice’)
oI (example words: ‘void’, ‘loin’, ‘voice’)
əυ (example words: ‘load’, ‘home’, ‘most’)
aυ (example words: ‘loud’, ‘gown’, ‘house’)
3.3 Triphthongs
A triphthong is a glide from one vowel to another and then to a third, all produced rapidly and without interruption.
The triphthongs can be looked on as being composed of the five closing diphthongs described in the last section, with ə added on the end. Thus we get:
eI + ə = eIə əυ + ə = əυə
aI + ə = aIə aυ + ə = aυə
oI + ə = oIə