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Re: Rounded /j/?

From:Danny Wier <dawier@...>
Date:Tuesday, March 30, 1999, 3:01
Oops, I forgot to ask a question based on my previous reply...

I wrote:

>FFlores wrote: > >>Is there any natlang with a rounded palatal approximant? >>I mean, the * in the series /i, u, y/ :: /j, w, */. >>I know the sound is perfectly possible, but I wonder >>if this sound is an independent phoneme in any natlang. > >Yes, I can name French and Abkhaz off the top of the head. In French, >this consonant is found in _ui_-pairs: _huit_, _puis_, etc. In Abkhaz, >this is simply a palatized /w/, and is written by a funny addition to >the Cyrillic alphabet: an <O> that makes a loop inside and extends >downward, like a Latin capital <Q>.
I meant to ask if there's an *unrounded* verson of /w/, that is, a glide from IPA inverted <m> (the IPA symbol of the rounded /j/ is an inverted <h> to the tonic vowel? I can think of possibly Japanese (a glide like, say, /ua/ instead of /wa/. Of course that could only come after a consonant in a syllable. Danny Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com