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DanielLC comments on Open thread, July 28 - August 3, 2014 - Less Wrong
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That's the problem right there though, you're assuming that 'y sound' corresponds to the letter Y in English. The letter Y can represent either the phoneme /j/ (pronounced as the syllable-initial y), or the smallcaps i. The general rule is that syllable-initially Y represents /j/, elsewhere it represents the smallcaps i. Same goes for W, it's /w/ syllable-initially, /u/ (or smallcaps omega, or barred-u depending on your dialect) elsewhere. R is similar but there's a lot more variability in how it's pronounced by individual people, for some people "bird" has a distinct consonant in there, for others it's just an r-flavored vowel, for people like me it's not there at all because I speak a non-rhotic dialect but I lengthen the preceding vowel somewhat as compensation.
Linguists tend to be a bit more specific than me. There may be a slight difference between /i/ and /j/, but they're really close. It doesn't seem to be enough to justify one being a vowel and the other being a consonant.
I tried listening to the recordings of /i/ vs /j/ on Wikipedia. /i/ just had /i/, but the recording for /j/ is /ja/, so it's hard to concentrate on the /j/. It sure sounds a lot like /ia/. Similarly, /w/ had /wa/, which sounds a heck of a lot like /ua/.
I feel like /y/ just means that you start out transitioning from /i/ to another vowel. You tend to emphasize the following vowel more. But since you could be transitioning to any vowel, it doesn't make sense that /y/ represents the transition itself. The only constant is it starts out as /i/.
A particularly interesting case is /jiː/ (Old English pronoun that is now spelled "ye"). It's clearly not just /i/, and /ii/ would sound identical. But it does seem to be somewhat of a palindrome. The /i/ at the end is extended longer, but the sounds are the same forwards and backwards. There's a slight change in the sound or emphasis between them, so it might be /ieiː/ or something where it moves to a subtly different vowel and back.
I am not interested in being an introductory phonology/phonetics textbook, but if you want to know why linguists think that semivowels should be considered a separate category to vowels, there is plenty of writing out there on the subject.I'm bowing out from further participation.