Phonological Monophthongs, Phonetic Diphthongs:
Evidence from English

G.N. Clements (1)

1 LPP - LPP - Laboratoire de Phonétique et Phonologie - UMR 7018

This paper examines two different patterns of consonant-induced vowel lengthening in General American English (GAE), one involving uniform (proportional) lengthening of the entire nucleus and the other involving selective lengthening of the beginning and/or end of the nucleus. The first type is found with monosegmental nuclei such as that of bid, and the second with bisegmental nuclei such as those of bide and felled. The nucleus of bade, analyzed as monosegmental by some linguists and bisegmental by others, is treated by this criterion as monosegmental by three speakers and bisegmental by one. These results suggest that at least for some speakers, the monosegmental surface-phonological segment [e] may be realized as a sequence of acoustic targets {e} + {I} at the phonetic level, creating a phonetics-phonology "mismatch". It is suggested that mismatches of this type, while contradicting a condition of strict congruence between the phonological and phonetic levels, may be motivated by functional concerns.

Mots clés: phonology; monophthongs; diphthongs; General American English; phonology-phonetics mismatch

Mots clés: phonologie; monophtongues; diphtongues; anglais américain

Domaines: Linguistique

G.N. Clements. Phonological Monophthongs, Phonetic Diphthongs:
Evidence from English. Bulletin de la Communication Parlée (Les Cahiers de l'ICP), 2000, 5, pp.57-75. ⟨halshs-00182660⟩