The curious case of English /w/ and /y

English /w/ and /y/ are often identified phonetically with /u/ and /i/: /w/ and /u/ involve dorso-velar constriction and lip rounding, /y/ and /i/ raising of the tongue toward the palate without rounding. Although the glides are thus more or less equated with the vowels, most linguists keep /w, y/ apart from /u, i/. The justification is that /w, y/ are nonsyllabic ‘‘glides,’’ whereas /u, i/ are not. As a phonetic basis for keeping /w, y/ and /u, i/ apart, this is not very compelling. Aside from the fact that the articulatory postures for /w, y/ may not always be identical with those for /u, i/, the phonological argument advanced here is that /w/ differs from /u/ in being distinctively rounded, but not distinctively dorso-velar, while /y/ is distinctively palatal, but not distinctively unrounded. In fact, the same articulatory configuration, that of a rounded palatal [inverted aitch], is differently interpreted in the contexts /i–i/ and /u–u/, so that [i(inverted aitch)i] is /iwi/, while [u(inverted aitch)u] is /uyu/. Thus the same vocal tract configuration, reflected in an identical F pattern, is differently interpreted in the two vocalic contexts. It would seem that the listener knows that it was achieved by two quite different articulatory maneuvers. [Work supported by NIH Grant HD-01994 to Haskins Labs.]