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I looked the word governance up in dictionary and all dictionaries state its pronunciation is [ˈgʌvənəns] or [ˈgʌvərnəns]. However, I have several dictionaries that have audio and I can clearly hear they are actually saying [ˈgʌvərnənts]. The ending sound is the same as the word its. Is there a rule for this pronouncing behavior? Thanks.
Add two Youtube videos (the link include the time, you just need to listen a few seconds):
As Colin Fine said in the comments beneath the question, words that end with -nce are prone to epenthesis.
Most people tend to insert an epenthetic stop between Nasal + Fricative sequences
The reason is because the air comes out through the nose while articulating a nasal and as the nasal changes to a fricative—an oral consonant—the airflow must be switched from nasal to oral and should be stopped before articulating an oral consonant, so there is a brief period in which both the nasal and oral airflow are stopped, this is a brief oral stop, homorganic (same place of articulation) with the nasal.
[ˈgʌvərnəns] ends with a nasal+fricative so it's likely to be epenthesised to [ˈgʌvərnənts]
In most accents, prince/prints, mince/mints, sense/cents etc., are homophones.
Fricatives are /s ʃ θ/ and nasals are /m n ŋ/.
