The Phonemic Interpretation of Semivowels in Spanish

The traditional interpretation of [y] and [w] in Spanish forms like bien ‘well’ and bueno ‘good’ has been to assign them to the phonemes /i/ and /u/. The semivowel allophone of each of these vowel phonemes is stated to occur in the following positions: SV, VSV, CSV, VSC, VS; examples (from Chavarría-Aguilar): huerta, Tehuantepec, puerta, jaula, hoy. All analysts, however, agree that there are still other allophones that cannot be assigned to /i/ and /u/, but must be assigned to a phoneme /y/ (variously transcribed as /j, y, ž/), though with the exception of King they do not describe any allophones that must be assigned to /w/ and therefore set up no such phoneme. The assignment of [y] and [w] to /i/ and /u/ therefore achieves at best only the economy that results from having no /w/ in the phoneme inventory. Other possible advantages, such as those of pattern congruity, will be examined hereafter by comparison with the analysis to be suggested here

Interpretation (philosophy) · Linguistics · History · Philosophy · Phonetics and Phonology Research · Psychology

• Palatal vowels, glides and obstruents in Argentinian Spanish

  Open Access•Jacob W Harris, James W Harris et al.•Phonology•1999

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