AN EXTRA PHONEME OF AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH

IN his article 'Australian English Vowels as a Diasystem', Word, Volume 16 No.1, April, 1959, G. R. Cochrane concluded that 'the unit phoneme analysis of the vowels of Australian English . . . leaves as the only observable variation in the phoneme inventory the presence or absence of the phoneme 1u : I'. That is, he maintains that the three dialects of Australian English which he labels as AI' A~ and A:l utilise identical sets of phonemes, however various their phonetic realisations from dialect to dialect may be, except in this one particular: Al has a phoneme / u : / which the other two do not have. f