Quickie: <uy>
Posted: Thu Dec 07, 2017 6:32 am
Aside from Dutch, where it's something of an archaism, are there any languages which use this?
Yes, English. <guy> is /g{j/, not /gu.j/.alice wrote:Obvious, really, if you put it that way. More restrictively: are there phonemic diphthongs written <uy>, not just sequences of /u/ + /j/?
English <guy> is arguably better analyzed as <gu> /g/ (as in guild, guard, guest, guess) + <y> /aɪ/ (as in try, fly, cry), though. The only other native or naturalized English word with the putative <uy> = /aɪ/ correspondence seems to be "buy", and the resources I have looked at tend to favor classifying this as <bu> /b/ + <y> /aɪ/, which is admittedly a bit unintuitive but makes for a simpler overall analysis of English spelling patterns, as it takes care of "build" and (one pronunciation of) "buoy" alongside "buy" (see A Survey of English Spelling, by Edward Carney, and Dictionary of the British English Spelling System, by Greg Brooks).Salmoneus wrote:Yes, English. <guy> is /g{j/, not /gu.j/.alice wrote:Obvious, really, if you put it that way. More restrictively: are there phonemic diphthongs written <uy>, not just sequences of /u/ + /j/?
and Dutch loans, e.g. Stuyvesant /staivəsənt/; however, Schuylkill /skuwkəl/Sumelic wrote:English <guy> is arguably better analyzed as <gu> /g/ (as in guild, guard, guest, guess) + <y> /aɪ/ (as in try, fly, cry), though. The only other native or naturalized English word with the putative <uy> = /aɪ/ correspondence seems to be "buy", and the resources I have looked at tend to favor classifying this as <bu> /b/ + <y> /aɪ/, which is admittedly a bit unintuitive but makes for a simpler overall analysis of English spelling patterns, as it takes care of "build" and (one pronunciation of) "buoy" alongside "buy" (see A Survey of English Spelling, by Edward Carney, and Dictionary of the British English Spelling System, by Greg Brooks).Salmoneus wrote:Yes, English. <guy> is /g{j/, not /gu.j/.alice wrote:Obvious, really, if you put it that way. More restrictively: are there phonemic diphthongs written <uy>, not just sequences of /u/ + /j/?