PHONETICS AND PHONOLOGY
Segmental Aspects

British English triphthongs: eɪə aɪə ͻɪə əʊə aʊə

Phonetic and phonological characteristics of triphthongs are the same as they are for diphthongs. They are glides, the articulators move from the first position when the first segment is being pronounced to the second and then to the third segment “rapidly and without interruption” (Roach, 1996, p. 23). Jones describes them as a composition of a diphthong with the schwa (Jones, 2003, p. ix). He considers necessary to “insert a syllable division…when there is a morpheme boundary, as in buy + er /baɪ + ə/, or when the word is felt to be foreign, e.g. Messiah” (ibid.).

Phonologically, triphthongs, as well as the rest of the English vowel-sounds, function as centres of syllables.

Analysing British English, American English and Slovak contrastively, triphthongs only occur in British English. But even there they “create some problems”, as Jones says (Jones, 2003, p. ix). He further continues by pointing out how difficult it must be for foreign learners to hear and recognise them properly, because “many of these triphthongs are pronounced with only slight movement in vowel quality that it is difficult to recognise them,” e.g. in the word Ireland /aɪə.lənd/ which could sound as /a:lənd/. He suggests to treat triphthongs as monosyllabic in simple, not derived, uninflected words, like fire /faɪə/ (ibid.).

There are no triphthongs in American English, as American English is a rhotic variety. In rhotic accents, the final schwa is substituted with the retroflex approximant [ɻ].