I think about 95% of English monolingual ppl wouldn't even realise that /ŋ/ is it's own phoneme, most people likely just think ng is an n sound then a hard g sound.
I hope you or someone else has the time to read, think about and answer these very long-winded questions.
They were prompted by your comments about /ŋ/ and /ŋg/ phonemes.
Did you notice that when switching from, for example Spanish back to English, there's a kind of "inertia" in play, so that you speak with a slight Spanish accent/pronunciation for the first couple of English words or sentences?
I only speak Lithuanian now when my wife (a post-grad linguistic student at the ANU in 1982 before becoming a lawyer) wants to know certain words, or in some reminiscences I'll discuss with my younger sister.
We watched this video about Sanskrit and Lithuanian, and I was able to work out all of the Sanskrit words, but of course that is light years away from being able to speak it or even to get the correct pronunciation. (I did 3 years of Latin and French at school, but it would strain credulity to breaking point if I said I was a "speaker" of either.)
The video is a bit contrived, a miniscule sample, and very biased towards simple words, except for one complex compound sentence.
However, afterwards, when discussing the video with my wife, I unconsciously used Lithuanian pronunciation for at least 30 seconds.
I know because she laughed and mocked me. Again, and as usual.
My sister's name is Rita. You would probably pronounce her name "Reeta". I do too when I refer to her in something I say, e.g. "Rita is in Tangiers this week."
But I use a trilled r and a short i when I'm talking to her in person, i.e vocative case: "Rita, are you home now?"
I also use that form when I refer to her in (I don't know how to put it in academic linguistic terms) the "long ago" past tense, i.e. when we were living in the family home together.
Sometimes I will use one form of pronunciation for her name, and then correct myself immediately and automatically.
(I'll get back to that in a moment.)
I've also noticed that some people have a similar type of "inertia" insofar as they pronounce the same word differently in sentences a short time apart. I do understand that preceding words and phonemes can affect pronunciation of words ("the" pronounced "thee" would be the best example I can think of). Arwon's examples of singer, sanger, /ŋ/ and /ŋg/ phonemes, etc are germane here too.
But the best way I can put it is - it's as if the person's thoughts are running ahead of what they say. As somebody once said, "People talk first draft". (Zeroth draft in Trump's case!
)
They often correct the pronunciation of the word back to the first type immediately, or sometimes after the sentence is complete.
It's a long time since my wife studied linguistics and I'm sure the field has advanced tremendously in that time.
Have you come across the type of linguistic "pathologies" I described? If so, what formal name is given to them?
If you're still awake, here's the main point I'm trying to make in this ramble...
I suppose they might not be important at some level of academic analysis, but surely computerized "language algorithms", "translation algorithms" and others have to cope with those speech "pathologies". They are
not an indication that the speaker's knowledge and use of their language is deficient in any way - everybody does it at some time.
Incidentally, I loved waiting outside her 1st year classes, when she and other students were practicing making various sounds that were to be the subject of the next lesson. It was like the unfortunate inmates of Bedlam were told to go outside and play for 15 minutes.
