Re: Newbie...intro to my conlang

Beau wrote, and gwalla@despammed.com responded:

<<> Finally, my question...Can anyone explain an approximant?  I know the
> standard terminology of fricative, affricate, stop, plosive...etc. and I've
> never run across that until recently.
Approximants are semivowels, like /w/ and /j/.>>

Approximants are a broader class, actually.   Semivowels and glides are /w/ 
and /j/, and these are also approximants.  However, approximants also include 
laterals (/l/, and so forth) and trills, flaps and other rhotics (/r/ and so 
forth).   The reason the different terms came up, as I see it, is that you'll a 
bunch of different languages that have, let's say:

j w l r

Some will have processes that affect only /j/ and /w/ (glides); some will 
have processes that only affect /r/ (rhotics); some will have processes that 
affect only /l/ (laterals); some will have processes that affect only /l/ and /r/ 
(liquids); and some will have processes that affect them all--hence, the need 
for "approximants".   It's especially necessary where you have a single 
language that has different processes that affect different subgroups.   How you 
define the approximants of your language depends on how they work.   So, if you 
have the four above, and processes that affect /l/ and /r/, and different ones 
that affect /j/ and /w/, then you should probably classify them as liquids and 
glides.   If you have processes that affect all, though, that's when you'd 
use approximants.

-David

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