一般米語における母音体系の再解釈

Abstract

The English language has a relatively large and complicated inventory of vowels. The complication includes the equivocal status of the syllable nuclei in fleece, goose, face, and goat, each of which wavers between a long vowel and a diphthong in General American Previous studies on English vowels not only disagree as to this issue, but, more importantly, fail to discuss what makes the inventory as it is. This paper attempts to analyze the vowel system of General American and concludes that all bimoraic vowels appearing in stressed position are analyzed as two-member clusters, of which the first members consist of //i, u, ɛ, ɔ, ɐ//, and the second members, of //i, u, ɐ, ɻ//.