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The Portuguese diphthongs are formed by the labio-velar approximant [w] and palatal approximant [j] with a vowel, [45] European Portuguese has 14 phonemic diphthongs (10 oral and 4 nasal), [46] all of which are falling diphthongs formed by a vowel and a nonsyllabic high vowel.
The stressed diphthongs ei, eu, oi take an acute accent on the first vowel whenever it is low. Aside from those cases, there are a few more words that take an accent, usually to disambiguate frequent homographs such as pode ( present tense of the verb poder , with [ ɔ ] ) and pôde ( preterite of the same verb, with [ o ] ).
ui sometimes represented the diphthong /ui̯/, as in cui listen ⓘ and huic. [27] The diphthong ei mostly had changed to ī by the classical epoch; ei remained only in a few words such as the interjection hei. If there is a tréma above the second vowel, both vowels are pronounced separately: aë [ä.ɛ], aü [a.ʊ], eü [e.ʊ] and oë [ɔ.ɛ].
The falling diphthong /ɪw/ of due and dew changed to a rising diphthong, which became the sequence [juː]. The change did not occur in all dialects, however; see Yod-dropping. The diphthongs /əɪ/ and /əʊ/ of tide and house widened to /aɪ/ and /aʊ/, respectively. The diphthong /ʊɪ/ merged into /əɪ/ ~ /aɪ/.
The diaphonemes for the lexical sets given here are based on RP and General American; they are not sufficient to express all of the distinctions found in other dialects, such as Australian English. English monophthongs and diphthongs
Diphthongs with a short first element are sometimes called "proper diphthongs", while diphthongs with a long first element are sometimes called "improper diphthongs." [39] Whether they have a long or a short first element, all diphthongs count as two morae when applying the accent rules, like long vowels, except for /ai oi/ in certain cases ...
A short diphthong had the same length as a short single vowel, and a long diphthong had the same length as a long single vowel. [124] As with monophthongs, their length was not systematically marked in Old English manuscripts, but is inferred from other evidence, such as a word's etymological origins or the pronunciation of its descendants.
Length distinctions were eliminated in these diphthongs, yielding diphthongs /ai, ɛi, ei, au, ɛu, eu, iu, ɔu, ou/ plus /ɔi, ui/ borrowed from French. Middle English breaking: Diphthongs also formed by the insertion of a glide /w/ or /j/ (after back and front vowels, respectively) preceding /x/. Mergers of new diphthongs: