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Why shouldn't we pronounce the second "T" in word "potential"? Any english rule about "t" in words?

Araucaria - Him
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Kevin
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1 Answers1

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Potential is usually pronounced /pə'tenʃl/. However, many native speakers, and learners as well, will put a /t/ in between the /n/ and the following /ʃ/. This is called /t/-epenthesis.

This phenomenon will happen very often in English when we have /n/ followed by /ʃ/. So it is perfectly possible to say /pə'tentʃl/ in English. However, notice that this is not because there is a T in the writing. We also find an epenthetic /t/ in words like mensh where there is no orthographic T, no written T, between the N and the following SH, which represents the /ʃ/ phoneme.

An epenthetic /t/ is caused by the velum rising to make the /ʃ/ sound before the oral closure for the /n/ has been released. In other words, as we pass from making the nasal sound to making the 'sh' sound, our tongue and velum may be slightly out of sync. In the in-between phase the articulation becomes the same as that for a /t/, and so we get an incidental /t/ in the word.

We find the same thing when we get /n/ before an /s/, so the following words sound identical for many speakers:

  • mince/mints
  • prince/prints
Araucaria - Him
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  • As a student of linguistics, do you know of any language with minimal pairs /nts/,/ns/ in any language? (which is to say, if you haven't figured, that I don't think there is any articulatory or perception difference at all for anybody). – Mitch Nov 13 '16 at 16:36
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    @Mitch: There certainly are. Some varieties of English have had, or still have, the distinction. – herisson Nov 13 '16 at 16:52
  • @suməlic Oh. Can you give some examples of those varieties and the words that have different meanings with only that one change? – Mitch Nov 13 '16 at 16:54
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    @Mitch: John Wells for example has written that he distinguishes "prince" and "prints." – herisson Nov 13 '16 at 16:55
  • @suməlic Good example and Wells would be the best of anybody to know. But even so I find that hard to believe even in the most articulate of speech. – Mitch Nov 13 '16 at 16:58
  • @Mitch Well, there are definitely languages which won't allow a /nts/ cluster. I deeply susect that some of those will allow a /ns/ cluster. I doubt that kind of epenthesis will happen there. But, I don't know. For sure there wouldn't be an /nts/ in those speakers' phonemic inventory, although there mights be a [nts] in the sound. A Sumelic says, Wells - and other individual speakers - will definitely find mince and mints to be minimal pairs. Good question though. As for the other languages, I'm just speculating. – Araucaria - Him Nov 13 '16 at 17:48
  • Your answer does explain how potential is pronounced, but how about why (as asked) ? – Irhala Nov 18 '16 at 13:19
  • @Irhala "An epenthetic /t/ is caused by the velum rising to make the /ʃ/ sound before the oral closure for the /n/ has been released. " <-- In other words, as we pass from making the nasal sound to making the 'sh' sound, our tongue and velum may be slightly out of sync. In the in between phase the articulation become the same as that for a /t/, and so we get an incidental /t/ in the word. – Araucaria - Him Nov 18 '16 at 13:40
  • Add this to your answer and it'll be perfect. – Irhala Nov 18 '16 at 13:41
  • @Irhala That quote was form my post! :) – Araucaria - Him Nov 18 '16 at 13:42
  • I meant, add the "so we get an incidental /t/ in the word" part. – Irhala Nov 18 '16 at 13:42
  • @Irhala I'm just going into a lesson now. Will sort it when I get out. Thanks! – Araucaria - Him Nov 18 '16 at 13:44
  • @Mitch If you’ll accept non-tautosyllabic examples, the asker’s own native language (I’m assuming that’s Mandarin) has a very clear distinction between /ns/ and /nts/. /ts/ (transliterated ⟨c⟩ in Pinyin) is a single consonant in Mandarin, distinguished from /s/, so something like 单色 dānsè ‘monochromatic’ is [ˈd̥an˥sɤ˦˩], while something like 单侧 dāncè ‘unilateral’ is [ˈd̥an˥tsɤ˦˩]. Even without going that far afield, German has pairs like eins [aɪ̯ns] vs. Mainz [maɪ̯nts]. Unlike in English, I’ve never heard [aɪ̯nts] or [maɪ̯ns] for either of those. – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 20 '16 at 16:17