GWendel wrote:
>The > "hay" example (pronounced like "i" in "like", "mike", "bike", etc), even > though a dipthong and not a vowel per se, still requires a vowel-sound > similar to that required in English as noted in the above 3 examples. Isn't > the English vowel "i" also pronounced [a] + [i]?
[a] + [y], in fact. I think you're calling a vowel both letters and phonemes and therefore concluding that /ay/ is ONE vowel. No, vowels are kinds of phonemes and their alphabet representation may vary from language to language and, in English, from word to word. If you take the word 'aisle', for instance, the correspondence of the diphthong /ay/ exclusively with one letter ( or, as you put it, one vowel ) in English proves incorrect.
Bye,
Caio Rossi Sao Paulo, Brazil
|
| |