Syllables in Fire

Person   Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:27 am GMT
How many syllables are in the word fire? One or two?
Kendra   Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:32 am GMT
two
[fai-@r]

it's not [fajr]
Torsh   Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:03 pm GMT
One, being [faIr\]. "lyre" likewise has one syllable [laIr\] while "liar" has two [lVI.@r\].
Sho   Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:09 pm GMT
Torsh,
So do you have two syllables in flower and one syllable in flour?
Lazar   Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:13 pm GMT
For me, "fire" has two syllables: ["faI.@`]. In my dialect it rhymes with "higher".
Torsh   Sun Apr 29, 2007 1:13 pm GMT
Yes. "flower" is [flaU.@r\] while "flour" is [flaUr\].
Travis   Sun Apr 29, 2007 6:48 pm GMT
I have two syllables in all these aforementioned words:

fire ["f@:IR=:]
lyre ["L\@:IR=:] or ["M\@:IR=:]
liar ["L\a:IR=:] or ["M\a:IR=:]
flour ["fL\6:UR=:] or ["fM\6:UR=:]
flower ["fL\a:UR=:] or ["fM\a:UR=:]

However, these do not act all the same when morphemes starting in a vowel are placed after them. "Flour", "fire", and "lyre" all desyllabicize the [R=], but "flower" preserves the [R=] as is. As for "liar", I can't think of a morpheme starting in a vowel to add after it.
Josh Lalonde   Sun Apr 29, 2007 6:59 pm GMT
<<As for "liar", I can't think of a morpheme starting in a vowel to add after it.>>

How about: "You're a liar and a cheat!"
Travis   Sun Apr 29, 2007 7:04 pm GMT
>>How about: "You're a liar and a cheat!"<<

The matter is that this nonsyllabic realization only occurs if the following thing starting with a vowel is an actual morpheme within the same word, rather than another following word starting with a vowel.
Travis   Sun Apr 29, 2007 7:11 pm GMT
An example, though, of this is:

floury ["fL\6:URi:] or ["fM\6:URi:]
flowery ["fL\a:UR=:i:] or ["fM\a:UR=:i:]

As for "floury", I'm just sort of making up the spelling here, as I've never seen it written down even though I've heard it in use many times; the "-y" morpheme is so productive in spoken North American English that it is extremely easy to create words one has never seen in writing with it...
SpaceFlight   Sun Apr 29, 2007 9:06 pm GMT
<<However, these do not act all the same when morphemes starting in a vowel are placed after them. "Flour", "fire", and "lyre" all desyllabicize the [R=], but "flower" preserves the [R=] as is. As for "liar", I can't think of a morpheme starting in a vowel to add after it.>>

I can't think of any morphemes start with a vowel that would be added after "lyre" either. However, "lyre" is a very low frequency word for me to begin with.
Josh Lalonde   Sun Apr 29, 2007 9:26 pm GMT
I usually pronounce all of these as two syllables, but there seems to be a distinction between historically monosyllabic words and those composed of two morphemes. I sometimes smooth the sequences [aI.@`] and [aU.@`] into [a@`], and this happens more frequently in the historically monosyllabic words, though smoothing the bi-morphemic words is not illegal:
fire [faI.@`] or [fa@']
lyre [laI.@'] or [la@`]
liar [laI.@`] or occasionally [la@`]
flour [flaU.@`] or [fla@`]
flower [flaU.@`] or occasionally [fla@`]

As Travis mentioned, the historically monosyllabic words tend to lose their syllabic /r/ with suffixes:
firing [faIr/IN]
while the bi-morphemic ones do not:
flowering [flaU.@`IN]

L-breaking works essentially the same way in my dialect, except that /l/ can also cause breaking with the tense vowels

tile [taI.Uo] or [tao]
dial [daI.Uo] or occasionally [dao]
fowl [fao] or in carefull speech [faU.Uo]
vowel [vaU.Uo] or occasionally [vao]
boil [bOI.Uo]
royal [r\OI.Uo]

tiling ["taI.lIN]
dialing [daI.lIN] looses syllabic /l/, I'm not really sure why
fowler ["faU.l@`]
vowelling ["vaU.Uo.lIN]
boiling ["bOI.lIN]
royally [r\OI.Uo.li]

This is l-breaking with the tense vowels. They are usually merged with the lax vowels in these words before a consonant.
feel [fi.Uo]
fail [fe.Uo]
fool [fu.Uo]
girl [g3`.Uo]
foal [foU] no l-breaking
call [kQU] or [kOo]
doll [dQU] or [dOo] no l-breaking occurs after my /Q/, which descends from historically tense /O:/ and /A:/ as well as lax /Q/
Uriel   Sun Apr 29, 2007 9:53 pm GMT
Fire, liar, lyre, flower, flour, ire, tire, flyer, mire, sire, buyer -- all have 2 syllables for me.
Travis   Sun Apr 29, 2007 9:58 pm GMT
>>I can't think of any morphemes start with a vowel that would be added after "lyre" either. However, "lyre" is a very low frequency word for me to begin with.<

One can have "lyrist" (for me ["L\@:IRIst] or ["M\@:IRIst]). It would not be a very common word, of course, but it is a quite conceivable word that could be derived through suffixation from "lyre".
Travis   Sun Apr 29, 2007 10:24 pm GMT
>>L-breaking works essentially the same way in my dialect, except that /l/ can also cause breaking with the tense vowels<<

I similarly have:

tile ["t_ha:I.M:] or ["t_ha:M]
dial ["d_ha:I.M:] or ["da:M]
fowl ["fa:U.M:]
vowel ["va:U.M:] or sometimes ["va:M]
boil ["bO:I.M:]
royal ["RO:I.M:]

tiling ["t_ha:I.L\I~:N] or ["t_ha:I.M\I~:N] or ["t_ha:I.MI~:N]
dialing ["da:I.L\I~:N] or ["da:I.M\I~:N] or ["da:I.MI~:N] or more carefully ["da:I.M:.L\I~:N] or ["da:I.M:.M\I~:N]
fowler ["fa:U.L\R=:] or ["fa:U.M\R=:]
vowelling ["va:U.M:.L\I~:N] or ["va:U.M:.M\I~:N]
boiling ["bO:I.L\I~:N] or ["bO:I.M\I~:N] or ["bO:I.MI~:N]
royally ["RO:I.M:.L\i:] or ["RO:I.M:.M\i:]

>>This is l-breaking with the tense vowels. They are usually merged with the lax vowels in these words before a consonant.<<

It seems like I have optional breaking of /a/ with the tense vowels /i/, /u/, and /e/ as well as /@r/ but not /o/, /Q/ or /a/, with more careful speech having breaking but most everyday speech lacking it.

feel ["fi:M] or more carefully ["fi:.M:]
fail ["fe:M] or more carefully ["fe:.M:]
fool ["fu:U] or more carefully ["fu:.M:]
girl ["gR=:M] or more carefully ["gR=:.M:]

but:

foal ["fo:U]
call ["k_hQ:U]
doll ["dQ:U] or ["dA:U]

Also, I do not have mergers of lax-tense pairs before /l/ in my dialect, whatsoever; why such did not occur in my dialect even though it has occurred in many other NAE dialects with l-vocalization, I do not know.