The Five Diphthongs of Modern French

Abstract

The fact that French troua must be pronounced [trua] whereas trois must be pronounced [trwa] leads some to the conclusion that [w] has separate phonemic status in French. A different view, advanced in a little known paper by Arnold in 1951, indicates that the segments [wa] and [ui] are diphthongs, and that wherever [w] is required it is always as the on-glide of /wa/ and has no phonemic status by itself. This makes sense not only synchronically, but also diachronically, and there is further historical evidence for a total of five diphthongs in Modern French: /wa, ui, je, we, je/.