15
votes
Why isn't the American r considered a vowel?
Many phonologists do consider "r" in "girl" to be a vowel, I being one. There are many reasons for people to consider it to not be a vowel. First, in "rabbit", nobody ...
- 74.9k
9
votes
What's up with the letter W?
Don't take spelling too seriously, it's often conventional and arbitrary. Language is primarily a spoken thing rather than a string of written letters. Don't confuse sounds (phonemes) with their ...
- 2,513
9
votes
Accepted
What's up with the letter W?
"W" developed as a standard, distinct letter by about the 17th century, taking its sweet time getting there. It is the result of standardizing a ligature of "vv", ramming the letters together. Bear in ...
- 74.9k
9
votes
What is the difference between a glide and a semivowel?
No. In the vast majority of contexts, glide and semivowel are synonymous. See e.g. Ladefoged & Johnson (2015: 191), Rogers (2000: 184), Ball & Rahilly (1999: 51).
Definitions of glide that ...
- 4,795
9
votes
Accepted
Is there any other language containing the sound of the "evanescent l" in Venetian?
The Wiki page on Venetian proposes that it may be phonetically [ɰ], also Ø, but that does not match the Forvo sample which is closer to [j]. In lieu of a solid phonetic study, it's not really possible ...
- 74.9k
8
votes
Does any living language contrast /kʷ/ and /kw/?
In theory, yes. Tashlhiyt Berber is said to have a contrast, but that does not mean that there are any minimal pairs. That article points to literature, saying that it is generally agreed that they ...
- 74.9k
8
votes
Accepted
Are semivowels pronounced differently than vowels?
There are a few different and mutually incompatible definitions of "consonant" and "vowel". One is, like you said, that vowels have no friction. But what about approximants like [l] or [ɹ]—or, for ...
- 58.8k
5
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between [j w] and [i̯ u̯]?
There's not necessarily any difference.
One of the weaknesses of the IPA is that it considers consonants and vowels totally separate things and describes them with totally separate parameters. This ...
- 58.8k
5
votes
Accepted
Can a vowel be a consonant?
A vowel has two closely related but inequivalent definitions. One of them looks what's happening in the mouth etc. Vowel is a sound in which the tongue doesn't touch anything and there's no build of ...
- 471
4
votes
What is the difference between a glide and a semivowel?
The term "glide" is used to include [h,ʔ], but the laryngeal glides would not be called semivowels. If you consult the IPA chart, you will see that neither "glide" nor "...
- 74.9k
4
votes
Does any living language contrast /kʷ/ and /kw/?
Just because a language contrasts two sounds, doesn't mean there should be minimal pairs (cf. English /h/ and /ŋ/).
The IPA uses a plain w to symbolise the [w] sound (war) and a superscript ʷ for ...
- 1,379
4
votes
Does any living language contrast /kʷ/ and /kw/?
Thai can be what you are looking for.
It has onset clusters /kw/, /kʰw/. Quite often, they are realized as labialized velar consonants /kʷ/, /kʰʷ/.
However¹, final stops like /-k/ are accompanied by a ...
- 8,600
3
votes
Is there any real phonemic distinction between semivowels and their vocalic counterparts?
In Latin there is qui (nominative singular) and cui (dative singular), presumably something like /kwi/ and /kuj/ respectively.
- 23.1k
3
votes
What is the phonetic and phonemic destinction between a semivowel and a vowel?
An article that claims that /j/ and /i/ are phonemically the same and distinguished from each other by being syllabic or not is either very confused about the concept of "phoneme", or doesn't know the ...
- 74.9k
3
votes
Accepted
Swahili stress with two vowels in a row, how does it work?
From an orthographic POV, stress is on the second to last vowel of the word ([púa] "nose", and if there is only a single orthographic vowel but there is an NC sequence before the vowel, the stress is ...
- 74.9k
3
votes
What is the nature of the distinction when a semivowel is surrounded by its corresponding vowel?
If you do strictly go by the first paragraph's understanding of [w], [wu] should be a somewhat longer version of [u], having whatever its reduced duration is plur that of [u]. It is not false to say ...
- 74.9k
2
votes
Accepted
Consonant symbol representation for /o̯/?
There is no simple IPA letter for [o̯] (or /o̯/). You can see the complete chart of IPA symbols on the following website: http://www.internationalphoneticalphabet.org/ipa-charts/ipa-symbols-chart-...
- 17.2k
2
votes
How is Sanskrit "va" supposed to be pronounced?
There is interesting research that the switch from hunter-gatherer to agriculture changed the jaw alignment creating an overbite that made the labio-dental consonants "f" and "v" a ...
- 29
2
votes
What is the nature of the distinction when a semivowel is surrounded by its corresponding vowel?
I think Catford has in mind the phonetician's distinction between a sound with a steady state and a sound without a steady state, the latter being a glide. Looking at the sound spectrograms ...
- 12.3k
2
votes
Do all semivowels have vowel equivalents, and vice versa?
It really depends on what kind of theory (of what?) you are using. In phonology, feature theory (generic theory, there are many specific theories) provides one kind of answer and makes it somewhat ...
- 74.9k
2
votes
Accepted
Are there any languages without Semivowels?
There is a minor terminological distinction between "glide" and "semivowel", in that "glide" includes the laryngeals [h, ʔ, ɦ] which would not be called "semivowels&...
- 74.9k
2
votes
Accepted
Is it useful to render French /i y u/ and /j ɥ w/ as allophones?
It is in fact proposed, in Schane (1968) that French glides derive from vowels. Morin (1971: "Computer experiments in generative phonology: Low-level French phonology") pursues this further ...
- 74.9k
1
vote
Is it useful to render French /i y u/ and /j ɥ w/ as allophones?
/lu.ua/ (loup où ah) is not the same as /lu.a/ (loua).
If you want to avoid /lwa/ for loi, you would want to use the non-syllabic diacritic: /lu̯a/ or a lower or upper tie bar /lo͜a/ /lo͡a/ to make ...
- 220
1
vote
Is there any real phonemic distinction between semivowels and their vocalic counterparts?
The conventional phonological difference between the glides [j,w] and [i,u] is that the former is a consonant and the latter is a vowel, in the sense of "not a syllable peak" versus "is ...
- 74.9k
1
vote
Epenthesis using SPE-notation
There are three subparts to this question. First, the general form of a rule of insertion is Ø→[...]/X__Y. Second, the conditional part of the rule is "w if precede by a back vowel, j if preceded ...
- 74.9k
1
vote
Voiced H as an approximant for schwa?
As a phonetic term, approximants refer to a class of consonants which covers liquids and glides (which includes laryngeal glides), so a vowel is not an approximant. In the SPE feature tradition, ...
- 74.9k
1
vote
Voiced H as an approximant for schwa?
A small cap H has been used by some structuralist phonemicists to stand for the centralizing glide which is very prominent in some American dialects. Perhaps someone who knows that literature better ...
- 12.3k
1
vote
Voiced H as an approximant for schwa?
[h], customarily referred to as a voiceless glottal fricative, in reality denotes any voiceless articulation with no interruption of the airflow in the oral cavity, with no defined configuration of ...
- 4,795
1
vote
pronunciation of [əj]
There may be a difference between what an author writes as "ai" versus "aj", but this is usually a substitute for the difference between a sequence of vowels in different syllables versus a vowel plus ...
- 74.9k
1
vote
What is the phonetic and phonemic destinction between a semivowel and a vowel?
Saussure proposed a phonetic theory of syllables according to which syllable onset sounds have increasing oral aperture for their duration (called explosive), syllable offset sounds have decreasing ...
- 12.3k
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