Anti Annie Aunty | Antimoon Forum

I decided to say the prefix anti- as ANN-TIE before consonants, but ANN-TEE before vowel sounds (hopefully that's ok in American English). Since I don't pronounce the t's in words like "twenty, center, interact, etc.", should I skip the T in the prefix ANN-TEE too, and pronounce Annie, Auntie, and Anti- the same?
Note that I don't skip the T in ANN-TIE though. Thanks.

I'm American and for some reason I don't pronounce "aunty" and "Annie" the same. The T is always pronounced in "aunty", even though I usually wouldn't do that. And most people I know do the same thing. I say "anti-" like "AN-tie" usually. It's probably because I can't bring myself to say "AN-tee" since it sounds ridiculous to me.

At least here the three are not homophones, being:

"anti-" [ˌɛ̞̃ae̯]/[ˌɛ̯̆̃æ̆̃̃ae̯]*/[ˌɛ̞̃ɾ̃ae̯]/[ˌɛ̯̆̃æ̆̃ɾ̃ae̯]*/[ˌɛ̞̃tae̯]/[ˌɛ̯̆̃æ̆̃tae̯]* or, if followed by a fortis obstruent, [ˌɛ̞̃ăĕ̯]/[ˌɛ̯̆̃æ̆̃ăĕ̯]/[ˌɛ̞̃ɾ̃ăĕ̯]/[ˌɛ̯̆̃æ̆̃ɾ̃ăĕ̯]*/[ˌɛ̞̃tăĕ̯]/[ˌɛ̯̆̃æ̆̃tăĕ̯]* from /ˌɛ̯æntae̯/
"Annie" [ˈɛ̞̃ːĩ̯]/[ˈɛ̯̃æ̃ĩ̯]/[ˈɛ̞̃ːniː]/[ˈɛ̯̃æ̃niː] from /ˈɛ̯æni/
"Aunty" [ˈɛ̞̃ĩ̯]/[ˈɛ̯̆̃æ̃̆ĩ̯]*/[ˈɛ̞̃ɾ̃iː]/[ˈɛ̯̆̃æ̃̆ɾ̃iː]*/[ˈɛ̞̃tiː]/[ˈɛ̯̆̃æ̃̆tiː]* from /ˈɛ̯ænti/

* [ɛ̯̆̃æ̃̆] is [E~_X_^{~_X] in X-SAMPA, for the sake of readability.

At least here, words with underlying intervocalic /nt/ before an unstressed vowel have three general sorts of pronunciation depending on the individual speaker, stress, how careful one is speaking, and how "literary" the word is generally thought to be. On a scale from least careful to most careful, they are:

1) Realized only as a preceding nasalized short vowel
2) Realized as a nasal flap [ɾ̃] with a preceding nasalized short vowel
3) Realized as [t] with a preceding nasalized short vowel

The same kind of thing applies with /n/ in the same sorts of positions, which may be:

1) Realized only as a preceding nasalized long vowel
2) Realized as [n] with a preceding nasalized long vowel

Mind you that these result in some rather fine-grained phonetic differences between the words here which may not be completely noticable in other NAE dialects in which vowel length and nasalization is not as distinctive or which do not distinguish [ɾ̃] and [n]. Also, the more progressive forms of the dialect here generally fall on the extreme end of NAE dialects with respect to elision and assimilation, for the record.

I would honestly just suggest that it might still be a good idea to distinguish intervocalic /n/ and /nt/ clearly as [n] and [(n)t] or at least [n] and [ɾ̃] just for the sake of being easily understood, even though you cannot count on native NAE-speakers to really clearly distinguish the two (or when they do, to necessarily distinguish them all that saliently).

I believe your correct as far as the prefix is concerned. In antibiotic and antisocial, it is pronounced AN-TIE. In antioxidant and Antioch, the correct pronunciation is AN-TEE. However, there are also cases in which it is pronounced AN-TIH (using the short i sound), as in antiquate, antidote, antipathy, anticipate and antihistamine.

Also, there are two ways to pronounce aunt (at least in the US). The more common pronunciation is ANT, like the insect, but there are those who say it like it's spelled, with the au pronounced, as in gAUNTlet.

I don't know anyone who doesn't pronounce the t in both anti- and aunty.

Oops. Your should be you're.

Hmm, then it seems the T in Auntie and Anti- is always there (except in Travis's speech, but we all know you have a curious accent ;-)) and... isn't that weird? I mean, no T in "twenty" and "county", but it isn't skipped in "auntie" and "anti-". Go figure.

Part of what you describe is probably due to more common and less literary words tending to be reduced more than less common and more literary words. For instance, in my idiolect "twenty" has been reduced to the point that it is [ˈtʲʰwʌ̃ĩ̯] (yes, that's one syllable containing a triphthong in realization) except in quite careful speech, and even then it is still [ˈtʲʰwʌ̃ɾ̃iː], while I normally pronounce "anti-" as [ˌɛ̯̆̃æ̆̃ɾ̃ae̯] even though it does not have primary stress (and I will not uncommonly pronounce it as [ˌɛ̯̆̃æ̆̃tae̯]).