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