Syllables in Fire

That should be:

doll ["dQ:U] or ["dA:M]

Maybe your not having a tense-lax merger before /l/ has to do with the fact that your /l/ is unrounded, which is pretty rare too.

>> ["dQ:U] <<

Hmm. That's really how you pronounce doll??? Really? Wouldn't that sound like dah-oo? Is that a very common pronunciation in the Midwest and also in Canada since Josh seems to have it too?

>>>> ["dQ:U] <<

Hmm. That's really how you pronounce doll??? Really? Wouldn't that sound like dah-oo? Is that a very common pronunciation in the Midwest and also in Canada since Josh seems to have it too?<<

This a single syllable, with [Q:U] being a long falling dipthong, whereas "dah-oo" would be two syllables, ["dQ:.U].

My having this is because my dialect is l-vocalizing, and as Josh's dialect is also l-vocalizing (even though it does have some differences with how my dialect is l-vocalizing) and is otherwise not too far from my own, he has a similar pronunciation here as well. I myself would not expect such a pronunciation in dialects which don't have l-vocalization, for obvious reasons.

>>Maybe your not having a tense-lax merger before /l/ has to do with the fact that your /l/ is unrounded, which is pretty rare too.<<

This is one difference that generally sticks out between my own dialect and many other l-vocalizing dialects is that the realization of /l/ is only rounded when it assimilates to a preceding rounded vowel rather than being rounded in general. However, I have heard individuals here who did not speak AAVE who have vocalized /l/ to something more like [o] than like the [M] I myself use by default.

Of course, then, there is more than enough variation within the Milwaukee area in general even without AAVE, including differences in final devoicing (I have heard non-AAVE-speakers from here who lacked final devoicing), palatalization (my particular dialect has palatalization in many places where other dialects even within the Milwaukee area lack it), rhotic allophone distribution (many seem to have [r\] prevocalically in general here rather than my [R]), and so on and so forth...

<<Hmm. That's really how you pronounce doll??? Really? Wouldn't that sound like dah-oo? Is that a very common pronunciation in the Midwest and also in Canada since Josh seems to have it too?>>

It's not particularly common here in Canada. I'm definitely in the minority with l-vocalisation, but I think it might be spreading, especially in the big cities.

What's the difference between /faIr\/ and /faIr\=/? Is it possible to make that distinction?

Maybe you should look in the dictionary and see that there are no breaks between the word Fire, so therefore it is only one syllable. You can say it anyway you want but Mr. Webster doesn't agree with you.

Indeed. "fire" is one syllable and "higher" is two, as much as "line" is one syllable and "lion" is two.