3.6 Initial Semivowel-Insertion P-5.

There are a number of morphemes which begin in presurface forms with /u/ or /i/ whether this is the underlying initial segment or whether an underlying initial semivowel has been deleted before it (see preceding section). When such morphemes occur in word-initial position, they are not distinguishable from otherwise identical morphemes beginning in /yi/ or /wu/ and the most common pronunciation in either case is with the semivowel present on the surface. We therefore need a low-level rule changing //i// to /yi/ and //u// to /wu/ word-initially. There is no rule for word-initial /a/ which can occur on the surface. Length of the vowel is not relevant to the insertion of the semivowel.

Exx. are /Ø=wu-ma-na/ 'it is hitting it' from //Ø=u-ma-na// (presurface form, see preceding section); /wu-dhan^gun^y/ 'wind, breeze' from //uG-lhan^gun^y// /yin^ygura/ 'Anind ilyakwa (tribe) person' from //in^ygura// In these cases the underlying form without semivowel is based on morphophonemic behaviour in forms with prefixes (see discussions of P-2, P-4, P-18, P-20, P-21, P-49).

Sporadically and unreliably, some of these same roots can grow the semivowel in medial postvocalic position. This does not seem to be possible with verbs, but does occur with nouns, especially when preceded by ANAp noun class prefix /a-/ and (less often) with ANA_C prefix /ana-/ the exx. generally involving following /-uG-/ derivational noun class prefix. Thus /a-wu-dhan^gun^y/ and /ana-wu-dhan^gun^y/ 'wind' (in different syntactic environments) in addition to word-initial /wu-dhan^gun^y/ (see preceding paragraph). For /ana-/ the more common output is /an-u-dhan^gun^y/ (see P-46). For /a-/ there is no clearly established alternative output, but the /a-/ seems to be omitted fairly often where we would expect it. It is fair to conclude that the type /a-wu-dhan^gun^y/ does occur but that speakers are not very comfortable with it.

(P-5)		Initial Semivowel-Insertion
a.	Ø →		w		// #-_______		u (:)
			y				i (:)
b.	Ø →		w		// #X-_______		u (:)
			y				i (:)

where # is a word boundary and X is an ANA class prefix /a-/ /ana-/ ; the rule is obligatory in part (a) but sporadic in (b)