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Some English speakers insert a /t/ absent in standard American English in ⟨else⟩.
How did this arise? What’s the mechanism behind it? Is it related to the insertion of a /ks/ in ⟨espresso⟩, as in /ɛkspɹɛsɵ/, or the consonant-swapping some speakers perform in ⟨ask⟩, saying /ãks/? Is it a feature of AAVE?
In /l/, there's a closure between the sagittal middle of the tongue and the roof of the mouth. Air is released along the sides of the tongue. In /s/, more or less the opposite happens. The sides of the tongue are raised, and a groove is formed along the sagittal middle. If you move the tongue from an /l/ towards an /s/, and you don't time the formation of the groove correctly, you'll form a complete closure between the tongue blade and the roof of the mouth. The sound emerging from that configuration is a /t/.
In short, /t/ is formed as a transition from /l/ to /s/ when the different tongue configurations are not perfectly synced.
As a side note, the reverse happens in Icelandic, where the sequence sl- is pronounced /stl-/.
I've never heard this, and don't know which accents it pertains to. But it appears to me to be a perfectly normal example of epenthesis (in fact it is mentioned in that article)
I think /k/ in "espresso" is different: that is because of the influence of English words like "express". /aks/ is an example of metathesis, which is a different process.
