1. EPENTHESIS
Abstract
This paper aims at identifying the cause of epenthesis among students of BISEASE SHS, using
some of their words spoken in conversation. These words were recorded and analysed to provide
enough information about their epenthesis. Among the lots the mother tongue, Fante and Twi,
and the grammar of English allow that to happen.
Introduction
The dynamics of language manifests itself inter alia in the lack of mapping between
underlying and surface representations. Crowley (1997) notes that the underlying segments are
sometimes not realized, and vice versa, sounds which are not present underlyingly are articulated
and perceived as such. Phonologically, in the former case we are faced with deletion processes,
and in the latter with insertions. Different reasons are responsible for both types of processes,
including prosodic constraints, stress conditions, segmental neighbourhood, phonotactic
requirements, and others.
The present paper focuses on consonantal and vowel insertions, i.e. processes in which
consonants or vowels which are not present in the underlying form but appear on the phonetic
surface among English speakers of. The inserted segments have a different status depending on
the language: they can be phonemes, allophones or even sounds which do not occur in a given
language. The only criterion adopted for the purposes of the present analysis is that they are
perceived as segments. Thus, for example, inserted articulatory gestures or acoustic traces which
are not perceived by listeners as segments will not be treated as insertions. The article is

2. organized as follows. The insertions are classification of various types of insertion processes
based on a typological study is proposed.
Statement of the problem
Students of Bisease Senior High School are fond of inserting sounds into words in their
speech which seems to affect their pronunciation and produce speech errors. This could also lead
to misunderstanding between them and their listeners when talking.
Purpose of the study
This study aims at identifying causes of epenthesis in phonology in order to be able to
assign phonological explanations to the students’ problem and be able to solve it. It is also aimed
at adding more literature to the existing one in order to preserve the English language.
Research questions
1. Why are some sounds inserted in words during speech?
2. How could the problem be solved?
Research Design
Data from recorded speech of students in their day today conversation would be used for
analysis and reasons assigned to the causes of the insertions. The SHS Two students of Bisease
Senior High School who are made up of fifty five students would be the target population. These
students use English as a medium of interaction and studies. Their English is somewhat affected
by their mother-tongue and allow a lot of insertions when speaking English.

3. The meaning of epenthesis
Żygis (2010), notes that in phonology, epenthesis means the addition of one or more
sounds to a word, especially to the interior of a word. The word epenthesis comes from epi "in
addition to" and en "in" and thesis "putting". Epenthesis may be divided into: excrescence which
is the addition of a consonant, and anaptyxis for the addition of a vowel.
Types of epenthensis
Bosch & de Jong. (1998) say epenthesis could be grouped into vowels, called anaptyxis
and consonants, called excrescence epenthesis. Any insertion of vowel sounds is anaptyxis and
any insertion of consonants sounds is excrescence. “Epenthesis of r is always historically
secondary to deletion of r, from which it derives by reanalysis.” (McCarthy 1993:190).
Causes of and functions of epenthesis
Scott & Robert (2011), observes the following causes of epenthesis. Epenthesis arises for
a variety of reasons. The phonotactics of a given language may discourage vowels or consonant
clusters, and a consonant or vowel may be added to make pronunciation easier. Epenthesis may
be represented in writing or be a feature only of the spoken language.
Separating vowel
A consonant may be added to separate vowels in hiatus. This is the case with linking and
intrusive R. Example, drawing → drawring

4. Bridging consonant clusters
A consonant may be placed between consonants in a consonant cluster where the place of
articulation is different (e.g., where one consonant is labial and the other is alveolar),
something → somepthing, hamster→ hamster, warmth→ warmpth, fence→ fɛnts, else →ɛɫts
Breaking consonant clusters
A vowel may be placed between consonants to separate them. Regular examples in
English are -i-, used in forming Latinate words such as equidistant, and -o-, used in forming
words on Greek roots or general compounds, as in speedometer.
Other contexts or forms
While epenthesis most often occurs between two vowels or two consonants, it can also
occur between a vowel and a consonant, or at the ends of words. For example, as suffix -t, often
found in the form -st, as in amongst (from among + -st), is an example of terminal excrescence.
As a poetic device
An example in an English song is "The Umbrella Man", where the meter requires that
"umbrella" be pronounced with four syllables, um-buh-rel-la, so that "any umbrellas" has the
meter ány úmberéllas. The same thing occurs in the song Umbrella.
As a grammatical rule
Epenthesis often breaks up a consonant cluster or vowel sequence not permitted by
the phonotactics of a language. Sporadic cases can be less obviously motivated, however, such
as warsh 'wash' with an extra r in some varieties of American English, Hamtramck is
pronounced 'Hamtramick' as if there were an extra i.

5. Regular or semiregular epenthesis commonly occurs in languages that use affixes. For
example, a reduced vowel /ɪ/ or /ə/ (here abbreviated as /ᵻ/) is inserted before the English plural
suffix -/z/ and the past tense suffix -/d/ when the root ends in a similar
consonant: glass → glasses /ˈɡlæsᵻz/ or /ˈɡlɑːsᵻz/; bat → batted /ˈbætᵻd/. That is again a
synchronic analysis, as the form with the vowel is the original form and the vowel was later lost
in many but not all cases.
When borrowing words
Vocalic epenthesis typically occurs when words are borrowed from a language that has
consonant clusters or syllable codas that are not permitted in the borrowing language, though this
is not always the cause.
Languages use various vowels for this purpose, though schwa is quite common when it is
available. For example, in most Ghanaian Languages, words borrowed from English are
epenthesised to conform to autography and phonology of those languages. Words like lantern is
pronounced lanterne, belt-belet, socks-sockese, police-polici, spectacle-spectackele, one- oinye
Data collection
The following data were collected from students’ conversation with a mobile phone
recording device.
1. Vowel epenthensis (anaptyxis )
Bereak/ bɪreik/- break, deress /dɪresɪ/-dress, semarte/sɪma:tɪ/- smart, correcte/ kᴐrektɪ/- correct,
collecte/kᴐleck/-correct, polici/poulisi/- police, bibolo/bajibʊlʊ/, bible, Engelishe/ ɪŋɪlɪʃɪ/-
English, deseke/desɪkɪ/-desk, gentele/ʤentɪlɪ/- gentle, hosipitile/ᴐsɪpɪtɪlɪ- hospital, cale/kalɪ-car,

6. alock/alᴐ/-lock, awicked/ awɪkɪd/ wicked, pencili/pensɪlɪ/-pencil, carde/ ka:dɪ/-card, mobile/
mobaɪlɪ/-mobile, yimmanuele/jimanuelɪ/- emmanuel, samiele/ samɪelɪ/-samuel
2. Consonant epenthesis (excrescence)
Onye-one, panye- pan, penye- pen, combeef, flampbouyant, hantkerchief, stupiti/stupɪtɪ/ -stupid,
soŋg/soŋg/ -song, tomptom-tomtom, somepthing/sɒmpɵɪŋ/-something,
Analysis of data
The data above have been grouped into two, insertion of vowels and that of consonants. It
could be seen in the first group that the words have been inserted with vowels.
Some of the insertion occur at the beginning, middle and the end. Examples of sounds
added at the initial position are alock/alᴐ/-lock, awicked/ awɪkɪdɪ/ wicked.
Other insertions are in the middle; Bereaki/ bɪreikɪ/- break, collecte/kᴐlekt/-correct
Engelishe/ ɪŋɪlɪʃɪ/- English, deseke/desɪkɪ/-desk, gentele/ʤentɪlɪ/- gentle, hosipitile/ᴐsɪpɪtɪlɪ-
hospital, carde/ ka:dɪ/-card, yimmanuele/jimanuelɪ/- emmanuel, samiele/ samɪelɪ/-samuel
Those insertion that occur at the end include Engelishe/ ɪŋɪlɪʃɪ/- English, deseke/desɪkɪ/-
desk, gentele/ʤentɪlɪ/- gentle, hosipitile/ᴐsɪpɪtɪlɪ- hospital, correcte/ kᴐrektɪ/- correct,
polici/poulisi/- police polici/poulisi/- police.
Among the consonant insertion are; somepthing/sɒmpɵɪŋ/-something, Onye-one, panye-
pan, penye- pen, combeef, flampbouyant, hantkerchief, stupiti/stupɪd/ -stupid, soŋg/soŋg/ -song,
yimmanuele/jimanuelɪ/-

7. Interpretation of data
Epenthesis among the students occurs due to a number of reasons. In the first place
sounds are inserted to make pronunciation easier. In their mother tongue, mostly Twi, consonant
clusters that are not familiar are separated by an insertion. Example, hospital, the /sp/ was
separated by /ɪ/. Again, Twi does not end words with /l/ and most consonants; hence a vowel is
added at the end to conform to Twi orthography. That explains why police is pronounced /polisi/
instead of /polis/ as well as similar others.
Furthermore, consonants are inserted in the middle of some words. In some cases, they
are done to conform to the grammar of English as in combeef/combeef/- corned beef,
flampbouyant, handkerchief due to assimilation rule of English. In others, there is mother tongue
influence, such as Onye-one, panye/pain/ - pan, penye/pein/- pen.
Vowels and consonants epenthesis (rather than deletion) is a common process in
loanword adaptation in order to satisfy constraints on phonotactics and syllable structure in the
borrowing language or to satisfy native speaker phonology. While the motivation behind
epenthesis as such is clear (syllable structure constraints), one question remains: Which vowel or
consonant is inserted?
Usually, the following vowel sounds are not allowed at the initial position of words in
Twi by phonotatic constraints: [u, i, ] hence a Twi and Fante speakers of English would replace
them with sounds familiar in his language. The sounds are, however , allowed at middle and
final positions. /l/ /t/which does not normally occurs at final positions in Twi will have a vowel
sound added to it. Hence /sukulu/, /batele/, /bᴐlo/, /somᴐgele/,/ hᴐsopitili/. Some consonant
clusters, which are also not allowed have to be separated with a sound when the Twi speaker of

8. English meets them. When the two consonants of the initial consonant cluster is labial,a round
vowel is inserted into the epenthetic site.
Again, “there is no morpheme in Akan that is consonant-final at the systematic phonemic
level and, for this reason, any analysis that posits an underlying consonant as a morpheme-final
consonant starts on a faulty note” (Abakah, 2005:7).
Akan has a strict syllable structure with preference for the basic open syllable structure
(CV). (Dolphyne, 1988). This presupposes that English words with sequences of obstruents as in
/st/, /sp/, /pl/, /sk/, etc. and word-final obstruents, being adapted into the language have to go
through some repair processes to conform to this structural wellformedness requirement in the
native grammar. The repair strategies that apply to these illicit- foreign words include vowel
epenthesis, consonant deletion, etc. Among these strategies, vowel epenthesis is the dominant
strategy that usuallyapplies in the process.
Again the type of vowel or consonant inserted depends on the environment in which it is
being introduced. [ᴐ, o, ʊ, u and ə ], for instance will be introduced in a rounding environment.
Hence, in book/b ʊk /, the successful candidates for insertion are [u, ʊ]. This results into /bu:ku/
and /sukuu/. Some sounds are also inserted at the middle and initial position due to the
environment. In corned beef for instance, the insertion of /m/ in the middle is due to the /b/ sound
following it. /d/ will therefore be assimilated into /b/ and /n/ into /m/.

9. Conclusion
Epenthesis among students of Bisease Senior High School is seen to be caused by the
mother tongue interference. Speakers of English differ from one another due to their language
background. Hence the Fante and Twi have a great influence on the students, resulting into the
insertion of sounds in words of English when the English sounds are not found in Fante. They do
so in another for the sound to be similar to the word to be pronounced.
Again, the grammar of English allows some sounds to be inserted into the word. Hence
such words are actually how they should be pronounced.
It has also been discovered that epenthesis is language specific. What may be
epenthesised by a particular speaker to be dissimilar to another.
Finally, it is recommended that adequate time be devoted in English lesson to deal with
pronunciation to deal with mother tongue interference.

10. Reference
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Clayton; Lucas, Ceil; Mulrooney, Kristin; et al., Linguistics of American Sign Language(5 ed.),
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Labrune, L. (2012). The Phonology of Japanese. The Phonology of the World's Languages.
Oxford University Press.
Liddell, S. & Johnson, R. (2011), American Sign Language: The Phonological Base. in Valli,
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