Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A sound that has the quality of one of the high vowels, as (ē) or (oo͞), and that functions as a consonant before or after vowels, as the initial sounds of yell and well and the final sounds of coy and cow.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun A half-vowel; a sound partaking of the nature of both a vowel and a consonant; an articulation lying near the line of division between vowel and consonant, and so capable of being used with either value; also, the sign representing such a sound.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A sound intermediate between a vowel and a consonant, or partaking of the nature of both, as in the English
w andy . - noun The sign or letter representing such a sound.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A sound in speech which has some qualities of a
consonant and some qualities of avowel - noun A letter which represents a semivowel sound, such as
w ory in English.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a vowellike sound that serves as a consonant
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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And, Iūnō is the *Latin* name; Uni is the Etruscan which, lo and behold, avoids the word-initial semivowel /j/.
Prefixes in Minoan 2010
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You overlooked what I already clearly wrote: "avoidance of word-initial semivowel /j/."
Prefixes in Minoan 2010
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The YA-/A- alternation in Minoan is merely a reflection of the phonotactically motivated avoidance of word-initial semivowel /j/.
Prefixes in Minoan 2010
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And, Iūnō is the *Latin* name; Uni is the Etruscan which, lo and behold, avoids the word-initial semivowel /j/.
Prefixes in Minoan 2010
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But continuing with the third possibility of preaspiration… on the basis of this single example, there are a number of possible explanations for the distribution, for example after vowels and semivowel.
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And sometimes the speaker pronounces ‘yi’ with a discernible initial semivowel sound.
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However, I notice that the initial semivowel of the triliteral *wd` is uncertain.
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I'm not a native speaker and I don't have a dictionary to hand so there's a good chance I'm mistaken, but is the last sound of 'acceuil' and 'seuil' and 'deuil' a kind of a semivowel that has its own IPA representation?
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A semivowel that which with such impact has an audible sound, as S and R.
Poetics 2002
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I mean may be either a vowel, a semivowel, or a mute.
Poetics 2002
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