Timeline for How many syllables are in the word 'hour'?
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10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 3, 2012 at 19:54 | comment | added | Peter Shor | I don't know the reasons behind the linguistic definition of triphthong is, but I would say that if a speaker perceives hour as one syllable, and pronounces all three vowel components aʊə, it's a pretty good argument for calling it a triphthong. | |
| Sep 1, 2012 at 8:57 | comment | added | Peter Taylor | @tchrist, I don't know what you consider "the" authority on the meaning of linguistic terms to be, but A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, 5th ed., D. Crystal, 2003, defines a diphthong as A term used in the phonetic classification of vowel sounds on the basis of their manner of articulation: it refers to a vowel where there is a single (perceptual) noticeable change of quality during a syllable, as in English beer, time, loud. I don't see any restriction to /w/ or /j/ there. | |
| Aug 31, 2012 at 23:49 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | Somehow the Brits are using a different notion of triphthong than one is taught in linguistics, and in studying other languages. I believe Wells is correct. | |
| Aug 31, 2012 at 23:24 | comment | added | Gnawme | @tchrist John Wells would agree with you. I'm of two minds (if not two syllables) about it, since I pronounce it with 1 syllable, but have the aformentioned "Hour after hour" ditty in my head. | |
| Aug 31, 2012 at 22:45 | comment | added | tchrist♦ | It can’t be a triphthong. They are somehow defining a triphthong as nothing other than three vowels sounds in a row, syllables notwithstanding. That isn’t right! A diphthong is a main syllabic vowel with a glide, either /w/ or /j/, attached to it on one side or the other. A triphthong has a non-syllabic glide on both sides of it. Schwa is not a glide: it creates a new syllable because it is in hiatus. Words like yay and wow are triphthongs, but words like Maya, power, and cayenne are not triphthongs. It has to all be in one syllable, and those vowels are not. | |
| Aug 31, 2012 at 18:48 | comment | added | Peter Shor | The Virtual Linguist speaks BrE. I was objecting to your decoding of the non-IPA pronunciation symbols used by the online Oxford Dictionaries for AmE. They don't always indicate syllables in their phonetic encoding; see catalyst, which is definitely three syllables, even though they only indicate two, and different, which can be either two or three. | |
| Aug 31, 2012 at 18:20 | comment | added | Gnawme | @PeterShor According to the Virtual Linguist, hour is "generally considered to be monosyllabic word containing a triphthong." Then again, I always think of the commercial ditty "Hour after hour, pucker power." | |
| Aug 31, 2012 at 17:18 | comment | added | Peter Shor | But doesn't /ou(ə)r/ mean /our/ (one syllable) or /ouər/ (two syllables), since English does not have an /ouə/ triphthong (well ... I guess some dialects might, but I don't think the Oxford English dictionaries count /ouə/ as a triphthong in AmE). | |
| Aug 31, 2012 at 17:09 | history | edited | Gnawme | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Added additional reference for pronunciation
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| Aug 31, 2012 at 16:49 | history | answered | Gnawme | CC BY-SA 3.0 |