Triphthong

In phonetics, a triphthong (/ˈtrɪfθɒŋ/ or /ˈtrɪpθɒŋ/) (from Greek τρίφθογγος, "triphthongos", literally "with three sounds," or "with three tones") is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement of the articulator from one vowel quality to another that passes over a third. While "pure" vowels, or monophthongs, are said to have one target articulator position, diphthongs have two, and triphthongs three.

Examples

First segment is the nucleus

English

In British Received Pronunciation, (monosyllabic triphthongs with R are optionally distinguished from sequences with disyllabic realizations)

As [eɪ̯] and [əʊ̯] become [ɛə̯] and [ɔː] respectively before /r/, all instances of [eɪ̯.ə] and [əʊ̯.ə] are words with the suffix "-er".

In Cockney, triphthongal realizations [ɪi̯ɐ̯, ɛi̯ə̯, ɔu̯ə̯, æi̯ə̯] of /iə, eə, ɔə, æʊ/ are possible, and are regarded as "very strongly Cockney".[1] Among these, the triphthongal realization of /ɔə/ occurs most commonly.[2] There is not a complete agreement about the distribution of these; according to Wells (1982b), they "occur in sentence-final position",[3] whereas according to Mott (2012), these are "most common in final position".[2]

Bernese German

Bernese German has the following triphthongs:

Northern Bavarian

Northern Bavarian has the following triphthongs:[4]

The Northern Bavarian triphthongs have evolved from combinations of former long vowels or diphthongs from the Middle High German (MHG) period and vocalized r.

Second segment is the nucleus

Portuguese:

Some Portuguese triphthongs appears in places where some speakers can break the first segment to form a hiatus (that is, [i̯] or [u̯] are not equivalent to standard Portuguese semivowels [j] and [w] in this case), and as such they are deemed as non-triphthongs by standard, although many or most speakers produce them as such (and even more frequently when speaking colloquially):

In addition, phonetic diphthongs are formed in most Brazilian Portuguese dialects by the vocalization of /l/ in the syllable coda, as well as by yodization of vowels preceding /s/ and /z/ or their syllable-final pre-consonantal allophones [ʃ] and [ʒ], thus if these consonants precede diphthongs, it is likely that a triphthong will form:

Romanian:

Spanish:

Vietnamese:

Third segment is the nucleus

Romanian (semivocalic phonemes marked with inverted breve accent below):

See also

References

  1. Wells (1982:306 and 310)
  2. 1 2 Mott (2012:78)
  3. Wells (1982:306)
  4. Gütter (1971), see the maps 8 mhd. â, 9 mhd. ô, 11 mhd. ê, 15 mhd. uo, 13 mhd. ie, 14 mhd. üe.

Bibliography

Look up triphthong in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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