Unit 1.1
Triphthongs
Introduction
In the English language there are 5 different triphthongs.
Form
When diphthongs are composed with one more vowel, the result is the formation of triphthongs. The vowel sound added is schwa (/ə/).
Below you can read the phonetic transcription of triphthongs:
- eɪ + ə
- ɑɪ + ə
- ɔi + ə
- əʊ + ə
- ɑʊ + ə
Example
- eɪ + ə:
layer, mayor, player; - ɑɪ + ə:
admire, fire, hire; - ɔi + ə:
lawyer, royal, soya; - əʊ + ə:
lower, slower, mower; - ɑʊ + ə:
power, tower, hour.
Use
Triphthongs are three vowel sounds that occur consecutively and can be separated in different syllables.
As we are talking about sounds, the addition of /ə/ is only on speech, as there is no form to put across the sound in a written word. The words with triphthongs have a consonant written somewhere in the clustering.