Date: Fri, 10 Oct 1997 16:41:41 -0700

From: Garland D Bills gbills[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UNM.EDU

Subject: Re: land mines



On Fri, 10 Oct 1997, Beverly Flanigan wrote:



Twice today I heard NPR newspersons, one a man, the other a woman

(I didn't catch their names) speak of the Nobel peace prize as going to

the movement to "band land mines," using an intrusive /d/. Notably,

they didn't intrude /d/ when using "ban" or "banning" alone. (And just

now a third announcer said the phrase without /d/). Is this a common

phenomenon I've just never attended to before?



I think this phenomenon is not uncommon. It's simply a natural

transition between the two homorganic consonants: a moment of alveolar

oral occlusion after raising the velum (to end the nasal) and before the

lateral release. The same phenomenon is the pronunciation of "prince"

sounding the same as "prints". My impression is that the intrusive segment

is more salient in careful speech, as in the situation you refer to,

Beverly.



Garland D. Bills E-mail: gbills[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]unm.edu

Department of Linguistics Tel.: (505) 277-7416

University of New Mexico FAX: (505) 277-6355

Albuquerque, NM 87131-1196 USA