The class of approximants: its members, its parameters, and its history.

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March 2021 (title and conclusion modified in August 2022)

1 Introduction

There is no explicit definition of the current notion of approximant.
Dictionaries of phonetics and glossaries of phonetic terms are of little help: Crystal (2008) reproduces a definition given in Ladefoged (1975), (frictionless continuants, voiced and voiceless vowels, and [h]).
Trask (1996) evokes a range of five nonequivalent definitions of the term. He recalls some of these, the last of which is Laver’s (1994).
Roach (2011) describes English approximants as composed of semivowels and liquids.
These definitions should be updated and extended to a new definition. This definition could be deduced from:
 . an inventory  of the of the members of the class.
. the phonetic and phonological parameters permitting precise definition of these members.

 . the historical aspect of the class

This study comprises three main parts:

A list of the members of the class is created in the second section.

Section 2: inventory

A list of the parameters at the phonetic and phonologic levels is discussed in the third section.

Section 3: parameters

The class of approximants appeared recently. It is of interest to know exactly when and to consider the hesitations that arose after the creation and naming of the class. This subject is treated in the fourth section.

Section 4: history

Then, in the conclusion, a definition is chosen.