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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. [1] Examples of semivowels in English are y and w in yes and west, respectively.
Declarative sentences show a 2–3–1 pitch pattern. If the last syllable is prominent the final decline in pitch is a glide. For example, in This is fun, this is is at pitch 2, and fun starts at level 3 and glides down to level 1. But if the last prominent syllable is not the last syllable of the utterance, the pitch fall-off is a step.
For example, the French word louer, which means ‘to praise,’ is typically pronounced as [lwe] according to transcriptions using the International Phonetic Alphabet. [11] That pronunciation reduces the [u] vowel to a [w], or a glide sound, when pronounced in conjunction with the [e] vowel sound. In this example, the standard pronunciation ...
American English pronunciation of "no highway cowboys" /noʊ ˈhaɪweɪ ˈkaʊbɔɪz/, showing five diphthongs: / oʊ, aɪ, eɪ, aʊ, ɔɪ / A diphthong (/ ˈ d ɪ f θ ɒ ŋ, ˈ d ɪ p-/ DIF-thong, DIP-; [1] from Ancient Greek δίφθογγος (díphthongos) 'two sounds', from δίς (dís) 'twice' and φθόγγος (phthóngos) 'sound'), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is ...
An example is Spanish, which distinguishes two palatal approximants: an approximant semivowel [j], which is always unrounded (and is a phonological vowel - an allophone of /i/), and an approximant consonant unspecified for rounding, [ʝ̞] (which is a phonological consonant).
One use of the word semivowel, sometimes called a glide, is a type of approximant, pronounced like a vowel but with the tongue closer to the roof of the mouth, so that there is slight turbulence. [ citation needed ] In English, /w/ is the semivowel equivalent of the vowel /u/ , and /j/ (spelled "y") is the semivowel equivalent of the vowel /i ...
The glides in the examples can be analyzed as the result of a glide formation process that turns an underlying high vowel into a glide when followed by another vowel: /nie/ → [nje]. This process is usually blocked after a complex onset of the form obstruent + liquid (a stop or a fricative followed by /l/ or /ʁ/).
These phonetic elements may be used on their own (to represent, for example, grammatical inflections or foreign words), or may serve as phonetic complements to a logogram (used to specify the sound of a logogram that might otherwise represent more than one word). In the case of Chinese, the phonetic element is built into the logogram itself; in ...