Monophthongs and diphthongs

Most of the vowels have been monophthongs, in which the quality of the vowel stays
fairly consistent from the beginning of its production to the end. There are also several
diphthongs in English. Diphthongs change in quality during their production, and are typically
transcribed with one starting point, and a quite different end point, diphthongs are typically
long vowels. In English, all diphthongs have the first element as longer and more prominent
than the second. Three diphthongs are found very generally in accents of English, and are
shown in (1).
(1) Diphthongs (i)
SSBE GA
price aɪ aɪ
mouth aʊ aʊ
choice ɔɪ ɔɪ
The long high-mid front and back vowels in face and goat are also characteristically
diphthongal in SSBE and GA, as shown in (2).
(2) Diphthongs (ii)
SSBE GA
face eɪ eɪ
goat oʊ oː
Finally, SSBE has a third set of diphthongs, which are known as the centring diphthongs
as they all have the mid central vowel schwa as the second element. These centring diphthongs
developed historically before /r/, which was then lost following vowels in the ancestor of SSBE;
they consequently appear mainly where there is an <r> in the spelling, although they have now
been generalised to some other words, like idea. GA speakers have a diphthong in idea, but still
pronounce the historical [ɹ] in near, square, cure and therefore lack centring diphthongs in
these words (see(3)).
(3) Centring diphthongs
SSBE GA
near ɪə ir
square ɛə ɛr
force ɔə/ɔː oːr
cure ʊə ʊr

Minimal pairs
Minimal pairs and the commutation test are the main tools available to the phonologist
in ascertaining phonemic contrast among both consonants and vowels. A minimal pair list for
SSBE vowels appears in (1).
(1) Vowel minimal pairs
bit /ɪ/
bet /ɛ/
bat /æ/
but /ʌ/
beat / iː /
bait / eɪ /
Bart / ɑː /
boat / oʊ /
bought / ɔː /
boot / uː /
bite / aɪ /
bout / aʊ /
sherbet /ə/
Bert / ɜː /

The list above provides evidence for almost all phonemically contrastive vowels of SSBE,
with a very small number of exceptions. Since schwa only appears in unstressed syllables,
where most of the other vowels cannot appear. The short vowels /ʊ/ and /ɒ/, and the centring
diphthongs, do not appear in the selected context /b-t/; but the additional data in (2) shows
that /ʊ/ and /ɒ/ on the one hand, and the three centring diphthongs on the other, contrast
both with one another and with representative members of the list in (1). Phonemic contrast is
a transitive relationship, meaning that if phoneme a contrasts with phoneme b, and phoneme b
contrasts with phoneme c, then phonemes a and c also contrast.
(2) pit / ɪ / put/ ʊ / pot/ ɒ / peat/ iː / etc.
leer/ ɪə / lair/ ɛə / lure/ ʊə / lore/ ɔː /
Sets of minimal pairs like this may work very well for one accent, but not for another.