Everything about Semivowel totally explained
Semivowels—also known as
glides, especially in older literature—are
non-syllabic vowels that form
diphthongs with full syllabic vowels. That is, they're vowel-like sounds that don't form the
nucleus of a syllable or
mora; they're not the most
prominent part of the syllable. They are normally written by adding the
IPA non-syllabicity mark [ ̯ ] to a vowel letter, but often for simplicity the vowel letter alone is written.
Semivowels may contrast with
approximants, which are similar to but
closer than vowels or semivowels and behave as
consonants.
To illustrate, the English word
wow may be transcribed as [waʊ̯] (often abbreviated as [waʊ]). Even though both the [w] and the [ʊ̯] are similar to the vowel [u], the transcription [waʊ̯] indicates that the initial segment is considered to be a consonant by the transcriber, while the final segment is considered to form a diphthong with the preceding vowel. The approximant is more constricted and therefore more consonant-like than the semivowel [ʊ̯] or the vowel [u].
Because they're so similar phonetically, the concepts of
semivowel and
approximant are often used interchangeably. In this conflated usage, semivowels are defined as those approximants that correspond phonetically to specific close vowels. These are, corresponding to ; for ; for ; and for . In American English, there's also rhotic [ɹ] for [ɝ]. (See
approximant for details.) However, languages such as
Nepali,
Romanian and
Samoan have additional semivowels such as [e̯] and [o̯] that correspond to
mid vowels, and which other than being non-syllabic are not at all like consonants.
Examples
In languages such as
Japanese and
Hawaiian, every vocalic segment constitutes a separate syllable or mora. That is, at least in careful speech, there are no diphthongs. For example, the Japanese word
hai 'yes' is pronounced [ha.i], and
aoi 'be blue/green' is [a.o.i]. (The sounds /j/ and /w/ behave as consonants in these languages.)
Close semivowels
- English eye [ɑɪ̯]
- English cow [kaʊ̯]
- Dutch ui "onion" [œʏ̯]
Close vs. mid semivowels
- Samoan ’ai "probably" [ʔai̯]
- Samoan ’ae "but" [ʔae̯]
- Samoan ’auro "gold" [ʔau̯ɾo]
- Samoan ao "a cloud" [ao̯]
Spanish, in addition to having 14 phonemic diphthongs involving non-syllabic [i] and [u], also has a number of diphthongs formed by non-syllabic mid-vowels as the result of fast-speech as in
poeta [ˈpo̯eta] ('poet') and
maestro [ˈmae̯stɾo] ('teacher').
Italian has a similar process.
Semivowel schwas
Non-rhotic dialects of English have a non-syllabic schwa immediately after the vowel nucleus, as in RP [ˈfɛə̯] fair. Many dialects of German do something similar, as in Tor [ˈtʰoːɐ̯] 'gate' and Würde [ˈvʏɐ̯də] 'dignity'. In rhotic dialects of English, the final r may be considered a rhotic semivowel rather than a consonant; the decision whether to transcribe fair as [ˈfɛɚ̯] or [ˈfɛɹ] is similar to the choice of [ˈbaɪ̯] vs. [ˈbaj] for buy (see below).
Transcription
Diphthongs are variously transcribed in English. The simplest method, typographically, is to write
eye as [aj] and
cow as [kaw]. However, phoneticians often object that the final segments of these words don't have the constriction that characterizes the consonants [j] and [w] in
yes [jɛs] and
wall [wɔɫ], but rather are purely vocalic, and that therefore the symbols
and are inappropriate. In languages that contrast [ao̯] with [au̯], such as Samoan, the symbol obviously can't be used for both. Transcribing them with vowel symbols not only enables that contrast, but it allows a more precise transcription of other diphthongs. For example, the diphthong in English bay is often transcribed with a near-high semivowel, [beɪ̯], as being more accurate than a fully high semivowel, [bei̯].
Further Information
Get more info on 'Semivowel'.
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