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

Jeff Jones wrote:

>On Wed, 1 Nov 2000 16:05:34 +0100, Kristian Jensen <kljensen@...>
>wrote:
>
>>Eric Christopherson wrote:
>>>This is something that's been bugging me for a while: My phonetics
>>>textbook says that in English /i:/ and /u:/ are [iy] and [uw],
>>>respectively. It claims that these are diphthongs, and the second element
>>>is a glide. But how can you glide from one sound to the same sound? I
>>>thought a glide had to be something different from the other vowel (like
>>>[ai]), and it's my understanding that [y] and [w] are for practical
>>>purposes the equivalent to [i] and [u], respectively. What gives?
>>
>>I'll tell you...
>>
>>Its true that for all practical purposes, [j] and [w] are equivalent to
>>[i] and [u] respectively. But it is still possible to glide from say [i]
>>to [j]. Its a matter of a slight difference in aperture. Some dialects of
>>English, however, fail to do this. Semivowel are characterized by an
>>aperture that is not as specified as vowels (more on this below). So
>>semivowels can have the tendency in some dialects to be absorbed by the
>>vowel. Perhaps your dialect is like that. Below is something your textbook
>>probably also fails to tell you.
>>
>>Unlike what the IPA teaches, I have been taught to distinguish between
>>approximants and semivowels. There is a functional difference where
>>approximants often have the status of obstruents in the phonological
>>system, while semivowels are a special class of sonorants. Thus,
>>approximants are characterized by a central aperture in the place of
>>articulation not more open than vowels with the narrowest aperture
>>[i y u M A Q], while semivowels are characterized by an aperture that
>>is not as specific.
>>
>>Similarly, the difference between semivowels and vowels is that vowels
>>have a fixed aperture while semivowels do not. 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.
>>An English example would be from the so-called Southern dialects of the US
>>where /j/ has been absorbed in the underlying diphthong /aj/, since /a/ in
>>/aj/ is an open *front* vowel in this dialect. So they say something like
>>[fa:t] for "fight" /fajt/ or [pa:] for "pie" /paj/. Approximants will never
>>be absorbed by the vowel in the same way.
>>
>>-kristian- 8)
>
>Excellent explanation, kristian! One thing isn't clear, though. Isn't the
>/j/ in /jIdIS/ an approximant rather than a semivowel? (BTW, I've been
>planning to ask about Southern US open vowels, such as the phonetic
>difference between /aj/ and /ar/ and their ASCII IPA notation.)
Let's look at how we can interpret the phonological system in English. Some
interpretations of long vowels in English consider them as a sequences of a
vowel followed by a semivowel (ie. /ij/ /ej/ /aw/ /ow/ /oj/ /uw/). So its
quite likely that syllable-initial [j] would also be a semivowel. Also, if
/j/ was an approximant, then (as it is in many other langs) might have the
same status as obstruents in the phonological system. We would have to look
for obstruent phonemes that would correspond to /j/ in a relatively
symmetrical pattern. If, for instance, we said that /j/ was the voiced
version of /tS/, then what would we do with /dZ/? Basically, /j/ does not
function very well as an obstruent in the phonological system of English,
so its hardly an approximant but a semivowel.

-kristian- 8)