Semivowels, as the name suggests, are segments that are vowel like in terms of articulation, but function as consonants. Similar to the vowels, there is no obstruction to the airflow in their articulation. But similar to the consonants, they never occupy the nucleus of a syllable.
The two semivowels in English are distinguished in uniskript by representing the main organ involved in its articulation. The lips are distinctively rounded in the pronunciation of w, while the center of the tongue is distinctively raised to pronounce the y. The uniskript glyphs to represent them employ the following visual-featural indexicality and sound-shape congruency correspondences.
- A circle represents the rounding articulation of the lips in the labiovelar semivowel. At the same time, both velar and labial sounds are cross-sensory perceived as rounded.
- A half hexagon represents the raised articulation of the tongue in the palatal semivowel. At the same time, palatal sounds are cross-sensory perceived as angular and sharp.
Now, that we have explained how the semivowels are represented, let us examine how they are combined with the short vowels to form the long vowels of the English inventory.
Short vowels are phonetically plain, while long vowels are phonetically glided. It means that there is a slight change in the quality of the vowel throughout its articulation. Long vowels start with one quality and end with another quality. They are technically diphthongs, even though some of them are not perceived as such by native speakers of English. uniskript ESL is designed to help second language learners to articulate the vowels with a accuracy, so they need to be trained to produce the diphthongs even where they are not phonological. Uniskript approaches this problem by combining a short vowel and a semivowel to represent the gliding or changing quality of the long vowels in English. Let us start by looking at the long vowels that end with a pronounced rounding of the lips, as shown in Figure \ref{233283} below.