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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 plac...
#4: Nominated for promotion
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Moshi
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2023-12-16T19:44:41Z (11 months ago)
#3: Nominated for promotion
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Moshi
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2023-11-12T19:38:13Z (about 1 year ago)
#2: Post edited
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Moshi
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2023-11-12T19:37:56Z (about 1 year ago)
#1: Initial revision
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pureferret
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2023-11-12T11:14:41Z (about 1 year ago)
Vowel insertion phenomenon
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/](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/feebly), [/ˈnəʊbli/](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nobly#English) - Merriam-Webster: [ˈfē-blē](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feebly), [ˈnō-blē also -bə-lē](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nobly) - Cambridge: [/ˈfiː.bli/](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/feebly), [/ˈnəʊ.bli/](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/pronunciation/english/nobly) (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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linking_and_intrusive_R), but I've not found a similar article on vowel insertion.