Re: First post & three questions

Teoh and others have written:

>On Fri, Jan 19, 2001 at 04:21:05PM -0700, dirk elzinga wrote:
>[snip]
>> > 1. What semivowels are there other than y and w?
>>
>> It seems to me that any high vowel may have a semivowel partner,
>> so just as /y/ is /i/'s semivowel partner and /w/ is /u/'s, you
>> can also have a high front rounded semivowel as a partner to /ü/
>> (u-umlaut), and a high back unrounded semivowel as a partner to
>> /ï/ (i-diaresis). This is the so-called 'velar glide' of
>> Axininca Campa.
>
>Is it possible for other vowels to be semi-vowelized as well? 'cos my
>conlang has "smooth vowels": smooth /i/ --> [ji], smooth /u/ --> [wu].
>How would this generalize to other vowels such as [a] or [e]? I pronounce
>a smooth /a/ almost like [Qa] (Q = velar fricative) except that it's a
>very weak [Q], almost non-velar-like. How would you classify something
>like this?>

Seems to me, theoretically it ought to be possible for almost every vowel
sound to have a corresponding glide-- phonetically. After all, the position
of the tongue e.g. in [u_vowel] is different from [o_vowel].  Whether any
language, nat or con, would utilize the very fine distinction between the
two seems unlikely.
Aside from [j] / front V and [w] / rounded back V, and[H] (?) founded front
vowel,
there might be some kind of velar glide after barred-i, and perhaps a voiced
velar/uvular/glottal after [a]--  cf. a  lax pronunciation of "aha" for the
voiced glottal
(ayin in Semitic, I think?).
Tagalog and many Indonesian langs. get by with [j], [w] and [?]  as hiatus
avoiders-- the [?] corresponds to [a].