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Has any authority recognized what we could call "half-syllables"? I.e., "Air" being pronounced /ay-r or /eh-r; not quite two whole syllables, but more than one. Or "I" pronounced /ah-e {except in the U.S. South, where it's just /ah.}

Terence Kuch
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    They're (and there and their) diphthongs - two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable**. – FumbleFingers Oct 29 '15 at 21:00
  • Not that I know of. It would be like a musical rhythm of 5/4 where each measure has a dotted half note followed by a half note. Try humming that! – Greg Lee Oct 29 '15 at 21:46
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    FF has provided a good link. Note that many common dipthongs are heard as single phonemes; "no highway cowboys" has 5 dipthongs in it, but only 5 syllables. – anongoodnurse Oct 29 '15 at 22:11
  • @GregLee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintuple_meter If you can dance to it, you can hum it. – MetaEd Oct 29 '15 at 22:14
  • @MετάEd, I didn't just say 5/4 time, but two beats to the measure, with the first beat 1 1/2 times as long as the second. I don't see any such rhythm mentioned in the Wikipedia article on quintuple meter. – Greg Lee Oct 29 '15 at 23:29

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In a way...'sesquisyllabic' describes one-and-a-half syllable words, and they are recognized at least theoretically, by some authorities, in English. See, for example, "SESQUISYLLABLES OF ENGLISH: THE STRUCTURE OF VOWEL-LIQUID SYLLABLES", by Lisa M. Lavoie and Abigail C. Cohn, Cornell Univ.

By their account, the juxtaposition of a liquid consonant and a dipthong can produce a 'half-syllable' pronunciation. The account applies to 'air', but not 'I'.

JEL
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    This is the first I've heard of sesquisyllables. Thank you! I was never fully satisfied with the "one syllable, just one, only one" explanation. – Kit Johnson Aug 31 '17 at 08:10
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The word air has been classified as varisyllabic, meaning it can have either one or two syllables. See this blog entry written by renowned phonetician John Wells. This classification also extends to the vowels in near and cure.

I'd personally classify the vowels of real, fool, vile, howl, foil, and pale as varisyllabic also, but that classification seems to be less common.

I don't think i've seen anything classifying I as varisyllabic—it is generally classified as a one-syllable diphthong in English. Quite possibly speakers of some foreign languages hear it as two syllables, but native English speakers generally don't.

Peter Shor
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Actually, they're diphthongs, according to the standard definition of a diphthong found here:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diphthong

Ricky
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