Talk:Byron (name)

Pronunciation
D. Jones & A. C. Gimson (1977) give while John S. Kenyon & Thomas A. Knott (1944) give. It might be a common UK vs. US pronunciation but Jones & Gimson give also which sounds rather odd to me. Besides is not a triphthong listed in Help:IPA for English and from that example it is clear that they don't mean. I think it might be something like and, but I'm not sure. Could you help me to solve this little problem? Thanks in advance.--Carnby (talk) 22:51, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I suspect they do mean, and just splitting off the /r/ with the stress mark. — kwami (talk) 00:17, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The OED has and .  AFAIK,  and  are the same thing. — kwami (talk) 00:20, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * For Byron, both LPD and CEPD give . For Byronic, LPD gives, while CEPD gives . — Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 01:31, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Could we say it's By·ron in US English (and elsewhere), while it's Byr·on  in RP?--Carnby (talk) 08:22, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * No, not according to the sources I cited, which say that the pronunciation is the same in both RP and GA. — Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 08:58, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * So, according to your sources, it should be always syllabified Byr·on?--Carnby (talk) 12:04, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * All I know is that that is how they syllabify it. Apparently it is a must, because according to both LPD and CEPD in this word can be realized as either  or . — Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 12:18, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * But the problem is of Byron, not . In other words, does  belong to the first syllable (coda) or to the second one (onset)?--Carnby (talk) 14:01, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * According to both of those dictionaries is the coda of the first syllable. — Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 14:17, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know whether Merriam-Webster is reliable as far as syllabification is concerned, but it says By·ron. And so does the American Heritage Dictionary.--Carnby (talk) 17:41, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Ok, then it's a minor disagreement between sources. — Peter238 (v̥ɪˑzɪʔ mɑˑɪ̯ tˢʰoˑk̚ pʰɛˑɪ̯d̥ʒ̊) 19:23, 7 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I would think, as a matter of course, we would tend to syllabify an intervocalic r with the second syllable unless the first syllable's vowel is modified by the /r/. It might be helpful to look at similar words like barren, siren, and whoring and see how they are syllabified. — Æµ§œš¹  [lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt] 05:56, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
 * My proposal is ( or ) because the present could be interpreted  (with three syllables, dividing  and !) or .--Carnby (talk) 12:53, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

After second-guessing myself at Aneurin Barnard, I wondered what the difference of and  is and made some searches, and all I could find was this thread. But upon giving some thought, I believe is correct, at least in our transcription system.

First, it should be noted that in General American it is unambiguously because GA doesn't have triphthongs (unless the word is trisyllabic, which it is not according to CEPD/LPD). So the question is only whether the first vowel is a diphthong or triphthong in Received Pronunciation. And in British English, the second segment in a diphthong followed by (as in player, fire, employer, mower, our) can be omitted (Cruttenden 2014: 150–1), a phenomenon known as smoothing or compression. And if you look up fire, tire, diary, desirous, etc. in LPD and CEPD, you can see that smoothing is indicated by the italicized. But in Byron, it's that's indicated to be optional, not. You can confirm this is not a misprint by looking up siren, pirate, irony, environment, Cyrus, Irish, etc. So the first vowel in Byron is not a triphthong but a diphthong, at least phonemically. (Also note that LPD transcribes e.g. care in GA as, indicating a schwa-like glide may be heard before , even though it is phonemically, unambiguously, (see his Accents of English, 1982).) Nardog (talk) 05:13, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

A couple remarks in regard to the comments from 2015 above: Nardog (talk) 07:04, 31 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Syllabification is not conclusive in this case. There is no widely agreed-upon method of syllabifying English words . Merriam-Webster fully adopts the maximal onset principle while CEPD and American Heritage treat consonants after checked vowels as codas, and LPD employs a more elaborate, complex system. All of these except LPD agree that in Byron belongs to the second syllable, but in analyses that establish triphthongal phonemes (which is common as far as RP is concerned),  and  are equally probable options.
 * I believe a syllabic is not found after any sonorant. Writing   and not   in IPAc-en suggests  is a plausible articulation, which I don't think it is unless we're talking about informal speech.