Semivowel

In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant 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. Examples of semivowels in English are y and w in yes and west, respectively. Written /jw/ in IPA, y and w are near to the vowels ee and oo in seen and moon, written /iːuː/ in IPA. The term glide may alternatively refer to any type of transitional sound, not necessarily a semivowel.

Classification

Semivowels form a subclass of approximants. Although "semivowel" and "approximant" are sometimes treated as synonymous, most authors use the term "semivowel" for a more restricted set; there is no universally agreed-upon definition, and the exact details may vary from author to author. For example, Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) do not consider the labiodental approximant [ʋ] to be a semivowel.

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the diacritic attached to non-syllabic vowel letters is an inverted breve placed below the symbol representing the vowel: U+032F◌̯ COMBINING INVERTED BREVE BELOW. When there is no room for the inverted breve under a symbol, it may be written above, using U+0311◌̑ COMBINING INVERTED BREVE. Before 1989, non-syllabicity was represented by U+0306◌̆ COMBINING BREVE, which now stands for extra-shortness.

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

Some authors argue for the recognition of additional semivowels:

• The rhotic approximants ⟨ɹ⟩ and ⟨ɻ⟩, considered to be semivowels corresponding to r-colored vowels such as ⟨ɚ⟩ or ⟨ɝ⟩.
• The pharyngeal approximant ⟨ʕ̞⟩, considered to be the semivowel corresponding to the open back vowel ⟨ɑ⟩, which is noted to have distinct pharyngeal features in its articulation.
• The post-palatal approximants, or central semivowels, which may be written as ⟨j˗ ɥ˗ w̟⟩ (diacritics for advancing and retracting), ⟨ȷ̈ɥ̈ẅ⟩ (diacritics for centralization), or the para-IPA symbols ⟨ɉɥw⟩, considered to be corresponding to the unrounded ⟨ɨ⟩, compressed ⟨ÿ⟩, and protruded ⟨ʉ⟩ close central vowels, respectively.

Contrast with vowels

Semivowels, by definition, contrast with vowels by being non-syllabic. In addition, they are usually shorter than vowels. In languages such as Amharic, Yoruba, and Zuni, semivowels are produced with a narrower constriction in the vocal tract than their corresponding vowels. 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 [flai̯] or as a closed syllable ending in a consonant [flaj].

It is unusual for a language to contrast a semivowel and a diphthong containing an equivalent vowel,[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:

• /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 speakers' difficulty in maintaining contrasts between two back rounded semivowels in comparison to front ones.

Contrast with fricatives and spirant approximants

According to their standard definitions, approximants (including semivowels) such as [j] contrast with fricatives such as [ʝ], in that fricatives produce turbulence, but approximants do not. In discussing Spanish, Martínez Celdrán (2004) suggested setting up a third category of spirant approximants (such as [ʝ̞]) contrasting with both semivowel approximants and fricatives, described as "non-rhotic central approximants". Ball & Rahilly (2011) revived the term "frictionless continuant" – which historically referred more broadly to non-lateral approximants – to distinguish this same class, and continued to use the term in subsequent works.

Though spirant approximants are more constricted (having a lower F2 amplitude), longer, and unspecified for rounding (viuda [ˈbjuða] 'widow' vs. ayuda [aˈʝʷuða] 'help'), the distributional overlap is limited. Spirant approximants can only appear in syllable onset (including word-initially, where semivowels never appear). The two overlap in distribution after /l/ and /n/: enyesar [ẽɲɟʝeˈsaɾ] ('to plaster') vs. aniego [ãˈnjeɣo] 'flood', and although there is dialectal and idiolectal variation, speakers may also exhibit other near-minimal pairs like abyecto [aβ̞ˈʝe̞tːo̞] 'abject' vs. abierto [aβ̞ˈje̞tːo̞] 'opened'. One potential minimal pair (depending on dialect) is ya visto [(ɟ)ʝaˈβisto] 'already seen' vs. y ha visto [jaˈβisto] 'and he has seen'.

Again, it is not present in all dialects. Other dialects differ in either merging the two, or conversely by enhancing the contrast through moving the fricative to another place of articulation (such as [ʒ], a feature called zheísmo), like in Rioplatense Spanish (some dialects of Rioplatense, such as the Buenos Aires dialect, even devoice to [ʃ], a feature called sheísmo).

See also

• Diphthong
• Hiatus (linguistics)
• List of phonetics topics
• Mater lectionis
• Syllabic consonant

Sources

Further reading

• Ohala, John; Lorentz, James, "The story of [w]: An exercise in the phonetic explanation for sound patterns", in Whistler, Kenneth; Chiarelloet, Chris; van Vahn, Robert Jr. (eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistic Society, pp. 577–599