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I have heard the letter R classified as a semivowel, which seems a little odd to me, at least for standard English. If a semivowel is always a modifier for a vowel, only found before a vowel, modifying its initial sound (attack?), or after, forming a diphthong, does this apply to R? You never find R separate from a vowel (except in some other languages), yet, to me, it seems to produce a distinct sound characteristic of a consonant.
I can imagine that in some regional accents (like New England, as well as some of Britain), the R following a vowel often loses its distinct sound and becomes a true semivowel ("pahk the cah"), though its sound is not lost across the range of speech (e.g., "whereas"). This is a vexing question that may not have an answer.
I classify letters thusly:
• Consonants produce a distinct sound that measures the attack or release of a vowel; the sound is typically consistent when separated from the vowel by another consonant.
• Vowels are open-mouthed, voiced sounds that can meld with other vowels to form a completely different sound (diphthongs).
• Semivowels either modify the open-mouthed attack of a vowel or, trailing, combine form a diphthong; they only exist in the presence of a vowel (in standard English, W is the only true semivowel).
• The letter Y functions as both a semivowel and an independent vowel.
• H is a modifier that has no independent sound of its own; it can function as a semivowel or as a semiconsonant
If this is a reasonable definition of the function of letters, I cannot figure out where R would fit (in English).
Personally, I class 'r', 'l' and 'w' with 'y'. They can be vowel sounds by themselves, that is, forming the entirety of a syllable with no consonants to give them form, as in "litter", "little", and "bitty" ('w' is simply an 'oo' sound). But they can also be used in diphthongs to modify the traditional vowels, as in "write", "car", "Larry", "mall", "yellow", "boy", "won" and "cow".
Add the nasals to the class of semivowels. The word kitten in casual speech lacks the independent vowel you"d get in kit ten; something similar applies to syllabic m.
In the Japanese syllabary, -n gets its own row of the goju-on in recognition of its role as a standalone syllable, and it can appear in absolute isolation as one of the Japanese "yes, I"m still listening" sounds, in the same role as the more elaborate ano.
(Unrelated subject: is there any way of getting a single apostrophe in a word such as I"m in the preceding paragraph? I typed a single quote when I entered the message, but the posting software seems to have other ideas.)
I noticed the same thing with my posts, troboniator: When I do an apostrophe it comes through alright, but when I edit my post it changes all the " ' " to ' " ', unless I go through and retype them all at the same time. Dunno why.
Ron, I didn't know that about Japanese. But there are Slavic languages that use sibilants as sole vowels; in Russian, for example, 's' means "and", and in Polish I learned recently the same word is spelled 'z'.
Not to go too far afield, but Russian has several single-consonant prepositions: s, k, v. But in Russian, these are non-syllabic and must either be pronounced as joined to the following word or receive a fleeting (and written) vowel to allow them to be spoken. Other related languages have similar prepositions. Czech enjoys formal syllabic r, l, allowing that language to have fairly complex words without the familiar vowels: zblbl; strÄ prst skrz krk.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
Grant Barrett
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