apriiori

triphthongs ii

i just want to be able to divide words into syllables why is it like this

Okay so here’s the take:

These are all “triphthongs”, to use the slightly-joking terminology. If you very explicitly pronounce them as two syllables—i•re /aj.ɚ/, is•le /aj.l/, ou•r /aw.ɚ/, ow•l /aw.l/, oi•l /oj.l/, snar•l /snɑr.l/—this is mostly okay and fine. But often my instinct is more to say them in one syllable insofar as this is possible, even though maybe the last consonant starts to maybe look kind of like a syllable nucleus. Especially in words with a more complex ending like ours (/awrz/ or /aw.ɚz/).

Some of them kind of can’t be. I would say that air is /er/, but if I tried to say /ejr/ in one syllable maybe that would be fine. But pair and pay•er don’t really seem like homophones to me: one is /per/ and one is /pej.ɚ/. But then, payer is a kind of weird word? And it sort of seems to me that pronouncing a•le in particular as /ej.l/ is much less permissible than the rest of the words. (Though they’ll can be either /ðel/ or /ðej.l/.)

There’s are concern about minimal pairs. Some people draw a distinction between flour /flawr/ and flow•er /flaw.ɚ/. I am not entirely sure to what extent I do this. The pronunciations aren’t distinct enough for either to seem clearly wrong, and yet I wouldn’t be very surprised to learn that I tend to say flour with a less distinct second syllable than in flow•er. Other examples are hire and high•er, loir and lawy•er, and arguably there and they•’re—there must be one syllable, but they're can be one or two. I suppose you could also make a galaxy-brain argument that prayer and pray•er are a minimal pair.

I am not certain if I think eel and cool are better transcribed as /il/ and /kul/ or /ijl/ and /kuwl/—or maybe it’s /ijl/ but /kul/. Both ee•l /ij.l/ and coo•l /kuw.l/ seem basically permissible, but coo•l feels slightly weirder. Words like mere /mir/ don’t feel like they can be said with two syllables—but then, sear and seer are homophones, aren’t they? But seer might just be irregular. I think gir•l /gɚ.l/ is allowed?

One way to approach this is by thinking of longer words which add a suffix. The word fi•er•y is definitely /faj.ɚ.i/, but then again it isn’t exactly spelt fire•y. The word i•rate, on the other hand, is definitely /aj.rejt/. I think hi(•)r•ing could go either way. I noticeably prefer sou•r•ing over sou•ring, but I somewhat prefer how•ling over how•l•ing, snar•ling over snar•l•ing, and oi•ling over oi•l•ing. I definitely don’t say fai•l•ure /fej.l.jɚ/.

I say tour as /tor/, but in the Pacific Northwest I’ve sometimes heard something that sounds like /tuw.ɚ/. I have consulted with an expert and she says that in this variant, tou•r•ing has three syllables (for her at least), presumably /tuw.ɚ.ɪŋ/. But for me it’s just /tor.ɪŋ/.

In conclusion, this is all deeply inconsistent and I have never managed to package it into neat articulable rules and probably a bunch of people strongly believe girl to be one syllable but squirrel to be two because of how much longer the word squirrel is when written and I don’t even know for sure they’re wrong because there’s nothing actually stopping you in principle from saying squirrel but not girl with a syllabic l. It’s so bad. Someone fix it or something.

  1. Or /ɑr/ sometimes. But hour can’t reduce like that.

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