Semivowel

Template:Short description Template:Manner of articulation Template:IPA notice

In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel or glide, also known as a non-syllabic voiced, is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.Template:Sfnp Examples of semivowels in English are the consonants y and w, in yes and west, respectively. Written Template:IPAc-en in IPA, y and w are near to the vowels ee and oo in seen and moon, written Template:IPAc-en in IPA. The term glide may alternatively refer to any type of transitional sound, not necessarily a semivowel.Template:Sfnp

Classification

Semivowels form a subclass of approximants.Template:Sfnp Template:Sfnp Although "semivowel" and "approximant" are sometimes treated as synonymous,Template:Sfnp most authors use the term "approximant" for a more restricted set; there is no universally agreed definition, and the exact details may vary from author to author. For example, Template:Harvcoltxt do not consider the labiodental approximant [ʋ] to be a semivowelTemplate:Sfnp while Template:Harvcoltxt proposes that it should be considered one.Template:Sfnp

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the diacritic attached to non-syllabic vowel letters is an inverted breve placed below the symbol representing the vowel: Template:Unichar. When there is no room for the tack under a symbol, it may be written above, using Template:Unichar. Before 1989, non-syllabicity was represented by (Template:Unichar), which now stands for extra-shortness.

Additionally, there are dedicated symbols for four semivowels that correspond to the four close cardinal vowel sounds:Template:Sfnp

Semivowel (non-syllabic)	Vowel (syllabic)
Template:IPAblink (palatal approximant)	Template:IPAblink (close front unrounded vowel)
Template:IPAblink (labio-palatal approximant)	Template:IPAblink (close front rounded vowel)
Template:IPAblink (velar approximant)	Template:IPAblink (close back unrounded vowel)
Template:IPAblink (labiovelar approximant)	Template:IPAblink (close back rounded vowel)

The pharyngeal approximant [ʕ̞] is also equivalent to the semivowel articulation of the open back unrounded vowel [ɑ̯].Template:Sfnp

In addition, some authorsTemplate:Sfnp Template:Sfnp consider the rhotic approximants Template:IPAblink, Template:IPAblink to be semivowels corresponding to R-colored vowels such as Template:IPAblink. As mentioned above, the labiodental approximant Template:IPAblink is considered a semivowel in some treatments. An unrounded central semivowel, [ ȷ̈ ], equivalent to [ɨ], is uncommon, though rounded [ẅ] (or [w̟]), equivalent to [ʉ], is found in Swedish and Norwegian.

Contrast with vowels

Semivowels, by definition, contrast with vowels by being non-syllabic. In addition, they are usually shorter than vowels.Template:Sfnp In languages as diverse as Amharic, Yoruba, and Zuni, semivowels are produced with a narrower constriction in the vocal tract than their corresponding vowels.Template:Sfnp Nevertheless, semivowels may be phonemically equivalent with vowels. For example, the English word fly can be considered either as an open syllable ending in a diphthong [flaɪ̯] or as a closed syllable ending in a consonant [flaj].Template:Sfnp

It is unusual for a language to contrast a semivowel and a diphthong containing an equivalent vowel,Template:Citation needed but Romanian contrasts the diphthong /e̯a/ with /ja/, a perceptually similar approximant-vowel sequence. The diphthong is analyzed as a single segment, and the approximant-vowel sequence is analyzed as two separate segments.

In addition to phonological justifications for the distinction (such as the diphthong alternating with /e/ in singular-plural pairs), there are phonetic differences between the pair:Template:Sfnp

/ja/ has a greater duration than /e̯a/
The transition between the two elements is longer and faster for /ja/ than /e̯a/ with the former having a higher F2 onset (greater constriction of the articulators).

Although a phonological parallel exists between /o̯a/ and /wa/, the production and perception of phonetic contrasts between the two is much weaker, likely because of lower lexical load for /wa/, which is limited largely to loanwords from French, and a difficulty in maintaining contrasts between two back rounded semivowels in comparison to front ones.Template:Sfnp

Contrast with fricatives/spirant approximants

According to the standard definitions, semivowels (such as [j]) contrast with fricatives (such as [ʝ]) in that fricatives produce turbulence, but semivowels do not. In discussing Spanish, Martínez Celdrán suggests setting up a third category of "spirant approximant", contrasting both with semivowel approximants and with fricatives.Template:Sfnp Though the spirant approximant is more constricted (having a lower F2 amplitude), longer, and unspecified for rounding (viuda [ˈbjuða] 'widow' vs. ayuda [aˈʝʷuða] 'help'),Template:Sfnp the distributional overlap is limited. The spirant approximant can only appear in the syllable onset (including word-initially, where the semivowel never appears). The two overlap in distribution after /l/ and /n/: enyesar [ẽɲɟʝeˈsaɾ] ('to plaster') aniego [ãˈnjeɣo] ('flood')Template:Sfnp and although there is dialectal and ideolectal variation, speakers may also exhibit other near-minimal pairs like abyecto ('abject') vs abierto ('opened').Template:Sfnp One potential minimal pair (depending on dialect) is ya visto [(ɟ)ʝaˈβisto] ('already seen') vs y ha visto [jaˈβisto] ('and he has seen').Template:Sfnp Again, it is not present in all dialects. Other dialects differ in either merging the two or in enhancing the contrast by moving the former to another place of articulation ([ʒ]).

Notes

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References

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Semivowel

Contents

Classification

Contrast with vowels

Contrast with fricatives/spirant approximants

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

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