Epenthetic plosives in English: phonetic and phonological aspects

Abstract

In this paper, I propose first of all to present an overall and detailed picture of epen-thetic plosives that occur in English from a phonetic point of view. In so doing, I draw heavily on the information provided by two widely consulted English pronouncing dictionaries of our days, viz. the latest editions of LPD and EPD. I further propose to investigate the phonological status of the epenthetic plosives in English by basing my analysis on the principles of func-tional phonology practised in what I call ‘the Functionalist School’ or ‘the Paris School’ which is associated with André Martinet. My phonological analysis presented in this paper is crucially based on the Saussurean concept of opposition and fundamentally differs from any other known phonological references to epenthetic plosives in English.