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Originally Posted by steven
Decimus, I think I have a pretty good idea of where you stand and I respect your position. As I'm sure you can tell, I have a different opinion. Whether you meant it or not, I felt that you've had a very condescending tone towards me throughout this discussion and frankly I'm tired of it. There's no point in arguing with you about this because you will always be right in your mind.
Pandaman101, if one were to look at "ai" written on paper and say it, I think it would come out as two syllables. In practice, however, I think it can be said as one syllable. I notice this when people speak very quickly or in less formal situations. On paper, sure, it's two syllables. To pronounce it always as one syllable is certainly incorrect. To pronounce it always as two syllables is also incorrect. I'm sure the "it's two syllables" point of view is more official though. To be clear, I'm not just talking about "ai" as a single word, but also as a sound within words. Again though, I think that there is a lot of gray area when looking at Japanese with syllables in mind.
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Originally Posted by steven
(@OP  ...Hmm... I think you have a very simplified overview of Japanese. ... |
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Originally Posted by steven
...With that said, if a combination like あい is a monophthong according to Decimus, then how could it possibly consist of two syllables? You guys are mixing up syllablse with moras, plain and simple. ...
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Pot calling the kettle black?
I'll refrain from pointing out who started it, 'though I must say that having my points being repeatedly misrepresented and selectively ignored is also a particular pet peeve of mine.
Disingenuous statements also annoy me. Or at least, I have good reasons to think that you don't know much about what you are talking about, and judging by some of the comments by other people, I believe that I'm not the only one who think so.
Now, take Phonetics for an example. It is a social science, and it's not as exact as the natural sciences, like Chemistry or Physics. That said, phoneticists believe that there are some absolute truths in how sounds of human speech are produced, and part of the reason why some of them study phonetics in order to find out these 'universal' truths.
Some features of diphthongs are known to be universally true. As diphthongs have the qualities of two different vowels, two adjacent vowels must be present in order for a diphthong to exist. This is universally true, and there is no room for any relativistic interpretation.
By extension, it is impossible for a diphthong to exist if there is only one vowel.
History is another example of a social science. It is the systematic study of past human events. Some historical facts are known to be absolutely true -- the Empire of Japanese did attack Pearl Harbor for example, and George Washington was the 1st president of the United States. There is no room for any relativistic interpretation on the validity of these events --they did happen, and they are universal truths. Reasons are offered on why these events happen, but these reasons may not be universally true, and debates may arise around them as there is significant room for debate. This, however, does not change the fact that those events did happen, and hence you can't deny any of them, or at least not without sounding like a fool to anybody who knows history.
By extension, it is impossible for Abraham Lincoln to be the first president of the United States, as that would deny the fact that Washington was the first president.
Now, I concede that it might be possible to pronounce 「あい」 as a diphthong ('though it's probably a non-standardised of doing so), and that this claim may have further merit under laxer standards on what constitutes a 'glide', but claiming that 「や」,「ゆ」, 「よ」 can be pronounced as diphthongs even though they only have
one vowel is just plain bullshit.
(Pardon the term, but there is no other word in the English language that is more fitting.)