Semivowel

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Manners of articulation

Nasal consonant

Stop consonant

Fricative consonant

Lateral consonant

Approximant consonant

Semivowels (also called semiconsonants or glides) are vowels that function phonemically as consonants. They are typically briefer, less stable and often closer than the corresponding vowels. For example, the word wow is written {} in IPA. Even though the first and the last are similar phones, the former is considered a consonant phoneme while the latter is considered a part of the diphthong, because English speakers think wow rhymes with how , which means these words share the same syllable rime and the remaining in wow and the in how are both onsets, initial consonants.

Semivowels are classified as approximants that correspond phonetically to specific vowels.

Table of contents

1 List of semivowels
2 Examples
3 See also

List of semivowels

Examples

English y in yes: the palatal approximant
English w in well: the labial-velar approximant
Dutch w except in eeuw: the labiodental approximant
French hu in huit: the labial-palatal approximant