Comments on Vowel insertion phenomenon
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Vowel insertion phenomenon
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When I, maybe Br.E speaker, pronounce adverbs ending '-bly' I find myself occasionally inserting an extra vowel.
So I say feeble-y, noble-y but I 'correctly' say 'nim-bly' and 'lim-ply' (I've placed the hyphen to approximate stress).
Various online dictionaries give the pronunciation without that extra vowel/different stress:
- Wiktionary: /ˈfiːbli/, /ˈnəʊbli/
- Merriam-Webster: ˈfē-blē, ˈnō-blē also -bə-lē
- Cambridge: /ˈfiː.bli/, /ˈnəʊ.bli/
(I note that Merriam-Webster does provide an alternative pronunciation, but with no explanation)
What is this inclination towards vowel epenthesis called, if it even has a name? I know similar insertions with r has a name: Linking R and intrusive R, but I've not found a similar article on vowel insertion.
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