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The phenomenon works also on the cluster ls and thus it becomes [lts]. Both examples are alveolar sounds.

The epenthesis does not occur universally, but often works on "eins" anyway.

This does not seem to occur in English and Danish, so how is the /n/ in coda in German different from the others?

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    @Ludi, it's LS, not is. – bytebuster Jul 12 '18 at 21:54
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    A merger (or near-merger, at least) of /ns/ and /nts/ clusters is actually very common in English (something similar often applies to other clusters of a nasal + a non-homorganic voiceless obstruent, like /nʃ~ntʃ/, /ms~mps/, /ŋθ~ŋkθ/, /mt~mpt/), and a merger of /ls/ and /lts/ is not unknown in English. See the following post on John Wells's phonetic blog: phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2010/08/… – brass tacks Jul 12 '18 at 22:58
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    Right. A nasal consonant is actually a homorganic oral stop with the velic flap open to allow air to escape through the nose, so as soon as the velic closes the /n/ transforms to a /t/, the /ŋ/ to a /k/, and so on. Since the innervation of the velic is independent of the tongue, they vary independently in time, and often the velic will close before the tongue moves out of stop configuration. It is, as noted, very common in American English. I used to tell my ESL students that it was impossible to move from an /n/ to an /s/ without going through /t/. – jlawler Jul 13 '18 at 2:54
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    Indeed. Just try to distinguish "prince" and "prints"... – Luke Sawczak Jul 13 '18 at 3:33
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    Yes, pretty much, unless it's one of those languages where funny things happen to nasals in the vicinity of sibilants. – jlawler Jul 13 '18 at 18:22

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