linguoboy wrote:Travis B. wrote:our /ɑr/ [ˈɑ(ː)ʁ] or, when strongly stressed, /aʊr/ [ˈɑːɔʁ̩(ː)]*
hour /aʊr/ [ˈɑːɔʁ̩(ː)]*
Mutatis mutandis, that's the distinction I have (although the strongly stressed form always feels affected to me, like saying
whether with [ʍ]). I don't distinguish
flour from
flower, though (or
vile from
vial).
Flour versus
flower is an interesting distinction I did not realize I had until recently, where apparently [w] is inserted after /aʊ oʊ u/ before another vowel
before breaking of /aʊr/ where /r/ falls in a coda position into [ɑːɔʁ̩(ː)]. Hence historical /aʊr aʊər/ are distinguished even when not followed by a vowel, aside from sporadic monosyllabicization of /aʊr/ as [ɑ(ː)ʁ]. (My parents at least corroborate that there is a "stronger w" in words like
flower than words like
flour, even though I wonder how much effect spelling pronunciation has here.)
Vile versus
vial are interesting, because they are not normally distinguished, since there is no [j] insertion between /aɪ/ and a following vowel to make a distinction, but on the hand in practice /aɪl/ but not /aɪəl/ frequently becomes monosyllabicized as [a(ː)ɤ] - but at the same time this might be partially phonemic, as it feels unnatural to pronounce
vile as [va(ː)ɤ], while it feels natural to pronounce
mile,
file, and
pile as [ma(ː)ɤ], [fa(ː)ɤ], and [pʰa(ː)ɤ].