In his valuable pioneering study The Phonemes of Gothic, Lg. 24.76–86 (1948), William Moulton suggests that Gothic /w/ has two allophones: [
] and [w]. The first of these is spelled with u, e.g. auk, þiuþ; the second with w, e.g. wigs, gaidw, or with ƕ (interpreted as /hw/), e.g. ƕas, or with q (interpreted as /kw/), e.g. qam. He regards the letter u in other occurrences as (1) designating a short syllabic /u/, (2) designating a long syllabic /u:/, and (3) supplying the second half of the compound symbol au—a means of writing additional short and long syllabic phonemes. He assumes that the letter w also has an alternative reference, a short syllabic found only in foreign words, e.g. Lwstrws.