Scríobh Dennis:

quote:

Cá bhfuil Max? Tá sé ina thost le tamall anuas.

I was on holiday...

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So far, I don't agree with what Lughaidh wrote...

There are three possibilities:

1/ au
2/ a^u
3/ aw

au is what we have in French in like "miaou" [mjau] ("miaow"). It's a two-syllable word. In French, there are no dipthong, either at the phonetical level or the phonological level.

a^u is what we have in English in like "out' [a^ut]. It's a one-syllable word whose vowel is a diphthong. We fing it transcribed as [aut] because it is simpler to write it that way, and since [au] can be nothing but a diphthong in English (as opposed to French), I don't see why this convention shouldn't be used.

aw is what we have in Irish in like "sámh" [sa:w] (with a back [a] - given in Ó Siadhail). It's a one-syllable word containing the vowel [a:] and ending with the consonant [w].

From the phonological point of view, the definitions of "diphthong", "vowel + consonant" or "vowel + vowel" will depend on the system of each language, which means that they will vary...
From the phonetical point of view, we could say that:
- There is a diphthong when there is gradual change between the first and the second vowel
- There are two vowels following one another when the change is brutal
- There is a vowel followed by a semi-consonant when the glide from the first vowel towards the second ends in partially blocking the air

As for Irish (I take the pronunciation given by Ó Siadhail):
- [au] doesn't exist.
- [a^u] is a diphthong both phonetical and phonological. Since [au] as two separate vowels is never to be found, we can use this convention to refer to the diphthong.
- [a:w] is the succession of two phonemes: /a:/ (realized as [a:]) followed by /w/ (realized as [w])

French knows the distinction between "vowel + vowel" and "vowel + semi-consonant": pays [pei] ~ paie [pej]
Irish knwos the distinction between "diphthong" and "vowel + semi-consonant": dabht [daut] ~ sámh [sa:w]

As for "tower" in English:
to me it is a one-syllable word whose vowel is a triphthong: [ta^u@r] (or [tau@r]). [au] becomes [au@] in front of [r] because [r] forces any tense vowel (and diphthongs are always tense in English) that is not realized "in its neighbourhood" to be diphthongized backwards (towards [r]). (compare "bee" and "bier", "too" and "tour", "cow" and "cower"... as opposed to "baa" and "bar" where there is no need to diphthongize)

[From a message I posted in February:]

Ó Siadhail's transcription in "Learning Irish" covers the basic phonology of Cois Fhairrge, without going too far into variant pronunciations or distinctions that are no longer consistently made in that dialect area. For example, he gives saurэ samhradh, g´i:w´r´э geimhreadh, although some speakers may still pronounce them with nasalized vowels: sãurэ, g´ĩ:w´r´э or even with a nasal obstruent: samrэ, g´i:m´r´э.

In “The Irish of Erris, Co. Mayo,” Éamonn Mhac an Fhailigh transcribed those words as sãwru:, g´ĩvr´u:, but explained that the w and the v in such words are both nasalized bilabial fricatives. The dialect has the diphthong эu, as in rэuэ rogha, tэuэ togha, L´эur or L´эuэr leabhar, m´эuir´ meabhair, эuN´ or эuiN´ abhainn; but it does not have au.

Mhac an Fhailigh’s book, like some of the other dialect studies, makes no mention at all of labiodental fricatives, because there are none in the dialect. The labial fricatives are bilabial in all positions. Using β, β΄, φ and φ΄ to represent them draws attention to this fact, as well as to the fact that stressed -amh- is not a diphthong, but a vowel and a consonant.

(Message edited by Peadar Ó Gríofa on October 10, 2005)