Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class of sounds includes lateral approximants like (as in "less"), non-lateral approximants like (as in "rest"), and semivowels like and (as in "yes" and "west", respectively). 

Before Peter Ladefoged coined the term "approximant" in the 1960s, the term "frictionless continuant" referred to non-lateral approximants. 

Some approximants resemble vowels in acoustic and articulatory properties and the terms "semivowel" and "glide" are often used for these non-syllabic vowel-like segments. The correlation between semivowels and vowels is strong enough that cross-language differences between semivowels correspond with the differences between their related vowels. 

Vowels and their corresponding semivowels alternate in many languages depending on the phonological environment, or for grammatical reasons, as is the case with Indo-European ablaut. Similarly, languages often avoid configurations where a semivowel precedes its corresponding vowel. A number of phoneticians distinguish between semivowels and approximants by their location in a syllable. Although he uses the terms interchangeably, remarks that, for example, the final glides of English "par" and "buy" differ from French "par" ('through') and "baille" ('tub') in that, in the latter pair, the approximants appear in the syllable coda, whereas, in the former, they appear in the syllable nucleus. This means that opaque (if not minimal) contrasts can occur in languages like Italian (with the i-like sound of "piede" 'foot', appearing in the nucleus: , and that of "piano" 'slow', appearing in the syllable onset: ) and Spanish (with a near minimal pair being "abyecto" 'abject' and "abierto" 'opened'). QUESTIONS:

Q1:
1. What is the name of the person that coined the term approximant?
2. The term approximant was coined by which person?
3. 
Q2:
1. In what decade did Peter Ladefoged coin the term approximant?
2. The term approximant was coined by Peter Ladefoged in what decade?
3. 
Q3:
1. What is the term that was used before approximants?
2. What were approximants called prior to the 1960's?
3. 
Q4:
1. What is represented by approximants?
2. What do approximants represent?
3. 
Q5:
1. Are approximants considered to be fricatives?
2. Do approximants qualify as being called fricatives?
3. 
Q6:
1. What category of speech sounds make no turbulence?
2. No turbulence is created by what category of speech sound?
3. 
Q7:
1. What configurations do languages often avoid?
2. Languages often avoid what type of configurations?
3. 
Q8:
1. Phoneticians distinguish between what two categories thanks to their position in a syllable?
2. What two categories are distinguished by phoneticians by their position in a syllable?
3. 
Q9:
1. Can opaque contrasts be present in Italian?
2. Is Italian a language where opaque contrasts occur?
3. 
Q10:
1. Can opaque contrasts be present in Spanish?
2. Is Spanish a language where opaque contrasts occur?
3. 
