Information AboutSemivowel |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT SEMIVOWEL | |
| consonants | |
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Semivowels (also called '''semiconsonants''' or '''glides''', though these are now dispreferred) are Non-syllabic Vowel s that form Diphthong s with syllabic vowels. They may be contrasted with Approximant s, which are similar to but Closer than vowels or semivowels and behave as Consonant s. Semivowels are normally written by adding the IPA non-syllabic mark to a vowel symbol, but often for simplicity the vowel symbol alone is written. To illustrate, the English word ''wow'' may be transcribed as (or abbreviated to ). Even though both the and the are similar to the vowel , the transcription 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 . (Using the transcription for the diphthong rather than as one might expect is a minor phonetic point. See Diphthong for details.) Because they are 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 [i ; for [u ; for [y]; and for . (See Approximant for details.) However, languages such as Nepali and Samoan have additional semivowels such as and that correspond to Mid Vowel s, and which other than being non-syllabic are not at all like consonants. EXAMPLES ;Close semivowels
;Close vs. mid semivowels
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