Re: THEORY: [i:]=[ij]? (was Re: Pronouncing "Boreanesia")

On 1 Nov, Kristian Jensen wrote:

<snip a very informative and interesting discussion>

> In cases where a semivowel
>is next to a vowel with an identical place of articulation (like "yiddish",
>"ying", "woo"), the semivowels can become a bit more closed. But sometimes,
>semivowels have a tendency to be absorbed into the vowel with identical
>place of articulation. In English, there are dialectal differences so some
>would say [fi:d] and others [fijd] for "feed". In other languages, the free
>variation in aperture of semivowels have been exploited in such a way that
>they are altogether lost with vowels with similar places of articulation.

In Hebrew, as pronounced in Israel, when /j/ appears  _before_  /i/,
the /j/ is always dropped. Thus, an Israeli would say  /idiS/ when
referring to the lang.


I remember being taught (in the US, a long time ago) to use /y/ to
signify a palatal approximant.  But, having just looked at the IPA site
 at Brown U., I note that, in IPA at any rate, this is wrong:

/y/ is cardinal vowel 9: close front rounded

/j/ is a palatal appoximant

Interesting!

Dan Sulani
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likehsna rtem zuv tikuhnuh auag inuvuz vaka'a.

A word is an awesome thing.