paloi vs sikoi
A further involves a comparison of the pronunciation of paloi ‘stupid’ and sikoi ‘melon’. The informant insists that, for her, they do not rhyme, and paloi is [palui] while sikoi is [sikoi].
This may reflect the fact that the consultant is quite young, so the description presented here is of ‘modern’ Brunei Malay rather than a more traditional variety. Nevertheless, in analysing the pronunciation of this speaker, the lack of a rhyme between paloi and sikoi suggests that, in her idiolect, there are more than just the three potential diphthongs listed above, and it is not clear how sikoi should be analysed in terms of one of the three monophthong vowels followed by a glide.
Clynes (2001) states that a relatively open allophone of /u/ can occur in paloi, but he also claims that the same open allophone can occur in sikoi, and this is not supported by the observation of the consultant that they do not rhyme.
It seems that the occurrence of this allophonic variation for /u/ before /j/ varies between speakers and may also be lexically conditioned.