Question for non-rhotic speakers

Kirk   Sat Mar 11, 2006 9:10 am GMT
<<How do you only get 3 syllables out of "panacea"?>>

If your dialect experiences what's known as "smoothing" of underlying separate vowels to diphthongs. Think of a traditional upper-class RP accent and how "here" is pronounced. That diphthong (with the schwa on the end, so [hI@]) obviously has two vowel components since it's a diphthong but the word is still one syllable since diphthongs inherently don't take up two syllable spots (think of the word "light" with its diphthong [aI] yet it's still just a one-syllable word). Anyway, the idea of smoothing in such situations has always seemed like a somewhat exotic idea to me--for the words listed above I always have the higher amount of syllables than the lower (but that's not a big surprise considering my dialect).
Benquasha   Wed Mar 15, 2006 3:58 pm GMT
Ok my first language is english but I'm just wondering is my accent weird because I seem to put a different number of syllable in those words to all of you.

idea 3 : I-dee-ah
diarrhoea 4 : die-ah-ree-ah
panacea 4 : pan-ah-kee-ah
theatre 2 : thir-ter
Maria 3 : ma-ree-ah
Korea 3 : koh-ree-ah
Tiffany   Wed Mar 15, 2006 5:34 pm GMT
In what accent do they pronounce panacea (pah-nah-see-ah for me) pah-nah-kee-a?

Otherwise, I have a similar syllable pattern to you. Idea, for me, is pronounced with two syllables. And my "theatre" has the same number of syllables, but I would represent it in "fauxnetics" differently (thee-ter).
Liam   Thu Mar 16, 2006 7:41 am GMT
Thir-ter sounds like strangled or slurred RP, but thee-ter's a new one.
Benquasha   Thu Mar 16, 2006 4:21 pm GMT
Ok. Panacea, I was writing how I'd pronounce it when I first saw it because I've never heard it before... my bad.

What's RP?
Tiffany   Thu Mar 16, 2006 6:07 pm GMT
RP = Received Pronuniation
Benquasha   Sat Mar 18, 2006 7:41 pm GMT
Thanks Tiffany. Who uses Received Pronounciation?