Glide-onset formation between vowels in Akan

This paper examines complex alternations involved in glide-onset formation between vowels in Akan. A glide-onset formed between vowels is realized as either [w] or [j], largely aligning with the place specification of an abutting vowel. I propose that two inviolable phonotactic constraints underlie the [w] and [j] glideonset formation process - V1[+High]V2[-High] and CwV[Labial] - which are sometimes in conflict with one another. To avoid such impermissible structures, glide-onsets are formed that ultimately preserve V1's contrastive features. It will be shown that, surprisingly, /u/ and /u/ as V1s behave differently in glide-onset formation.