Abstract
There is ambiguity regarding how a consonant-glide (CG) sequence should be pronounced in the Romanized orthography of Squliq Atayal. In this paper the phonological behavior of these prevocalic glides in Squliq Atayal is examined in order to determine the nature of the glides. The commonly seen CG spelling in Squliq orthography corresponds to three distinct surface pronunciations: (1)tautosyllabic, (2)heterosyllabic with an intervening weak vowel, and (3)heterosyllabic yet segmentally adjacent. In previous literature only the first two pronunciations have been identified, but it is the contrasting syllabification patterns between (1)and(3) that support the classification of these surface glides into two categories: phonemic versus vocalically derived glides. An examination of morphologically related forms containing glides shows that the perplexing distribution of Squliq Atayal glides results from the coexistence of glide formation, vowel syncope, and resyllabification in the same system, which causes the distribution of phonemic glides and vocalic glides to overlap. The analysis suggests that the two types of glides in Squliq are different in phonological features, although they appear phonetically similar.