For irregular verbs, I was studying leer, caer, and oir, I came across 'triphthong'

Question

This is what I came across while studying. I looked it up in the dictionary and couldn't find it. It is used in this sentence...
To prevent the creation of a triphthong, the i changes to a y in the 3rd person singular and plural of these verbs.
Could someone explain to me what triphthong is and what that is about'

Answer 1

It has to do with how a word sounds with successive vowels. Think of dipthong, only referring to three vowels instead of two.

<http://dictionary.reference.com/search'q=triphthong>

1. Phonetics. a monosyllabic speech-sound sequence perceived as being made up of three differing vowel qualities, as the pronunciation of our, esp. in r-dropping dialects.

Triph"thong, n. [Pref. tri- + -phthong, as in diphthong: cf. F. triphthonque.] (Ortho["e]py) A combination of three vowel sounds in a single syllable, forming a simple or compound sound; also, a union of three vowel characters, representing together a single sound; a trigraph; as, eye, -ieu in adieu, -eau in beau, are examples of triphthongs.

Answer 2

Ah, I see. Thank you so much. I should have known it was something that easy. I think Paraleee talked about the use of 3 vowels in a row. But I had not heard of triphthong. Now I know. Thanks Nathaniel.

Answer 3

Think of dipthong, only referring to three vowels instead of two.

Yes, except that it is a diphthong. A dipthong would be spaghetti underpants used for swimming nearly nude.

Answer 4

James Santiago said:

Think of dipthong, only referring to three vowels instead of two.Yes, except that it is a diphthong. A dipthong would be spaghetti underpants used for swimming nearly nude.

Thanks for the spelling correction.

Answer 5

Actually, the so called rule is not correct, because in "leiendo" there would be no triphthong at all according to the Spanish rules of orthography and pronunciation: the first syllable would be le- and the second would -iendo.
The rule goes as follows: if you have a non-stressed i between two vowels, this becomes naturally a semi-vowel, and changes to y.

For example, the gerund of the verb leer adds to the root le- the ending -iendo, but instead of writing leiendo, you change the non-stressed i, getting leyendo. This is a regular change, and it works 100% of the time.

However, a stressed i between vowels, such as in oíamos, remains as it is.

Also, a non-stressed initial i followed by another vowel also changes to y. The verb cerrar changes to cierro, and similarly, errar changes to ierro, but after the modification, it changes to yerro.

Answer 6

That was my understanding for quite some time also until I was shown a contradictory example. (I wish I could remember the word). Read the definition Nathaniel gave more closely. It says three vowel sounds in a single syllable. They do not have to be in a row and may be separated with a consonant as long as they are in the same syllable. All the common examples show them to be in a row, but it is not a necessity.

Wendy said:

I think Paraleee talked about the use of 3 vowels in a row. .

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Answer 7

Quentin said:

They do not have to be in a row and may be separated with a consonant as long as they are in the same syllable.

The letter H is the only one that can be between vowels, and not break the syllable, since it has no sound whatsoever. If there is any other letter between vowels, each group of vowels on either side will belong to different syllables.

Answer 8

cac

Answer 9

How many syllables are in the word

Answer 10

Quentin said:

cac

Answer 11

The point was probably that if the [g] was approximated (pronounced with the tongue near enough to the roof of the mouth to restrict, but not stop, the airflow), as is common in rapid speech, then it is "vowel-like", and so, depending on your analysis, you might say you had a "triphthong". (I think I'd actually disagree with that analysis, but I'm guessing that's what the author was saying.)

There's an issue around whether you consider a diphthong/triphthong to be simply "a vowel with 2/3 different targets" defined purely phonetically, or whether you impose other constraints: e.g. a vowel with 2/3 different targets in a particular structural position in relation to the syllable. (And actually, that stems from essentially the same problem of definition extending to "consonant"/"vowel" per se.)

By the way, in technical usage, I don't think many linguists would use the terms to refer to spelling/writing (so, for example, "eye" would not usually be considered a triphthong), though I don't doubt that in non-technical usage, that's how many people use the terms.

Quentin said:

How many syllables are in the word

Answer 12

Quentin said:

How many syllables are in the word

Answer 13

agua

Moving off topic somewhat, when I look in our dictionary under agua and see: agua [ah'-goo-ah]; what exactly am I looking at? Are they just sounding out the word or are they trying to break it into syllables like you would see in better dictionaries?
When it comes to using hyphens it would be rather nice to know how to break the word in syllables correctly. One of the comments I left in the Reference section when I first came here was that they had all kind of rules for placing stress on syllables and even exercises to practice the same, but no rules on how to break words into syllables. It seemed rather illogical to ask you which syllable received the stress if you don't know how to properly break the word into syllables. They had explanations on diphthongs and triphthongs, but not the simple rules like you separate two consonants unless the second consonant is l or r or forms combinations like ch ..... I hope that has changed by now. Getting back to my question about agua I assume that it is a two syllable word ( a'- gua) with the ua forming a diphthong and that the dictionary is NOT breaking the word into syllables.

lazarus1907 said:

Quentin said:

How many syllables are in the word

Answer 14

I just learned another rule concerning diphthongs and triphthongs. Another of those "few simple rules for syllabilization".

The letter U - When U's purpose in a word is to make a consonant hard rather than soft (see lesson) as in portugués and guisantes, it does not count as a vowel and thus the above rules (for diphthongs and triphthongs) do not apply.

Please forget any posts or references that I made to the word agua.
I'm beginning to see why the syllibalization rules aren't in the reference section.

Answer 15

Quentin said:

Moving off topic somewhat, when I look in our dictionary under agua and see: agua [ah'-goo-ah]; what exactly am I looking at?

You are looking at a very inadequate phonetic transcription that uses English letter combinations to try to match the original sound, but gives you no real insight on the real pronunciation of the word.

Quentin said:

When it comes to using hyphens it would be rather nice to know how to break the word in syllables correctly.

I can give you the rules if you are interested. They are regular, logic and relatively simple.

Quentin said:

The letter U - When U's purpose in a word is to make a consonant hard rather than soft (see lesson) as in portugués and guisantes, it does not count as a vowel and thus the above rules (for diphthongs and triphthongs) do not apply.

True, but the U in "agua" does count a vowel, though.

Quentin said:

I'm beginning to see why the syllibalization rules aren't in the reference section.

Why'