What are common words in which written ‹i› is pronounced as the phoneme /ai/?

Question

I am a Brazilian teacher of the English language for Brazilian high school students. In this sense, the draft of this table has helped me a lot. So, my question about examples was only because I would like to improve this table to help me and help my students.

It’s not complete, of course, but this table intends to provide a list which could allow learners to get a glimpse of the implied rules around “i” pronounced as /ai/. To state the obvious, the way this table works is that the horizontal axis represents the letter or letters right before the “i” pronounced /ai/, and the vertical axis represents the letter or letters right after the “i” pronounced /ai/.

Please understand that I do not intend to build a “very large database” as one commenter mentioned. My aim is simply to gather answers to help me with day-to-day difficulties in teaching English pronunciation to Brazilian high school students.

Answer 1

I’m afraid you aren’t going to be able to do what you’re hoping to do with this—for several concrete reasons. So this answer should be read as a frame challenge. You’ve asked a question that cannot be reasonably answered in the positive, only in the negative. So that’s what I will do here.

A fundamental problem with this whole idea is that sometimes two or more different pronunciations exist for the same spelling. Sometimes this alternation completely changes the meaning of the word, as it does with live, wind, and minute. But other times changing the vowel does not change which word was said, as we see with vitamin, primer, and Philistine. Sometimes this difference is even regional or by register.

Another major problem with your system is that written inter-consonantal ‹i› in English represents not two possible phonemes, but four:

1. the /ai/ phoneme — with phonetic allophones including [ɑj], [aj], [ɐj], [ʌj], [ʌɪ], [ɑɪ], [aɪ], [ɑ]
2. the /i/ phoneme — with phonetic allophones including [ij], [ɪj], [i], [iː]
3. the /ɪ/ phoneme — with phonetic allophones including [ɪ], [ᵻ], [ɨ], [ɛ], [ǝ]
4. the/ɚ/ phoneme — with phonetic allophones including [ɚ], [ɝ], [ǝ], [ɜ]

All of those occur in both stressed and unstressed positions. Native Portuguese speakers in particular will have trouble distinguishing /i/ from /ɪ/, and this is a critical difference to English speakers.

Even where patterns do exist, the mapping between writing and pronunciation requires obversing more than merely a single letter written to either side of that ‹i›. You will need to look for a so-called “silent ‹e›” in some cases.

You will also have to take into account stress and emphasis, because even though all occur in both stressed and unstressed positions, a word that’s emphasized may be pronounced differently without changing which word is said.

And, of course, there are many exceptions to all of this even when you do find a legitimate pattern. And none of it applies if there is a vowel to one side or the other of the written ‹i›.

Here is a short list of common words with phonemes indicated via a special diacritic as a brief demonstration of the inescapable problems you cannot avoid. I’ve encoded which one of the four phonemes applies on each use via a specific ad-hoc diacritic:

1. Phonemic /ai/ is written í in this list.
2. Phonemic /i/ is written î in this list.
3. Phonemic /ɪ/ is written ì in this list.
4. Phonemic /ɚ/ is written ï in this list.

(If a written ‹i› corresponds to no vowel at all, then it is marked without a dot or any diacritic so that it is represented by ı in the list below.)

adrenalìne alpíne aubergîne Benedìctîne bínd bïrch bïrd bíro bïrth bítey bìtty brìgantîne busıness caníne Catherìne chìmney chína chîno cïrcle cítatıon cíte cìty clementíne columbíne combíne crìnolìne crystalìne declíne declìnatıon defíne defìnìtıon díno Dîno dïrge dïrt dìvíne doctrìne doctrínal doctrìnal engìne ermìne fîlo fìn fíght fínd fíne fîno fïr fïrm fïrst fíver flïrt gasolîne genuìne gìft gïrdle gïrl gïrth gìver grímy grìppy grípy guîllotîne hìck híke híney hìnt híree Í Í’ll ìll ìmagìne ìntestìne Íran Ìran Îranìan írate îrrìtate ìrrìtate ísle ívy kîlo kìn kínd Kïrby kïrk lífe lífer lílac lìly líma Lîma lìmo Lîsa lìtho líve lìve lívely lìver Lìvy Líza machîne magazîne malígn malìgnant marîne medìcìne medıcìne Mìckey mícro mìdî Míkey mìller mílo míme mìmeo mínd míne mìnî mìnt mínute mìnute mïrth mîso nïrvana phí phî phìltrum phímosìs píne pínt pìty Plíny Plìny prímer prìmer prîmo prìnt prìthee prìvy ravîne rhíno Ríley routîne sardîne shíny shïrk shïrt sígn sílo sïr skïrt smïrk spíce spíky swïrl tangerîne tapïr thïrd thïrst thïrty tìc tìnny tíny tíro turbìne twïrl urìne urínal urìnal Valentíne Valentîno vaselîne vìdeo vïrgìn vïrtue vítamìn vìtamìn whíny whïrl whìsper wífí wíld Wìlma wínd wìnd wíno zïrcon zìtty

If you look over that list, the only pattern that seems generally usable is that you get phoneme 4 above, the r-colored vowel, when you have a written ‹ir› following a consonant which is not immediately followed by a vowel, as in bird, fir, girl, sir, shirt, Kirby.

Trying to teach learners any other rule than at most this one alone would be too complicated and full of exceptions for them to be able to learn. They will come to understand the underlying patterns only after long exposure to them. You cannot teach it from a chart like yours.

Again, this is only for inter-consonantal uses of written ‹i›. All bets are off when there are adjacent vocalic letters, such as you find in words like genius, ruin, join, against, afraid, aisle, eight, heifer, yield, coercion, persuasion, exertion, waive, naïve.