Why does "singer" have /ŋ/ and "longer" have /ŋg/?

Question

The word "singer" is pronounced as /ˈsɪŋ.ər/ having /ŋ/ and not /ŋg/ in Standard Englishes. On the other hand, the word "longer" is pronounced as /ˈlɒŋɡər/ having /ŋɡ/ and not just /ŋ/ in Standard Englishes. "Longer" is derived from "long" which only has /ŋ/.
There are some other words as well, like younger, youngest and the superlative form of "long": longest = /ŋg/
And those which have only /ŋ/: ringer, hanger, banger.
I read this answer (“English” pronounced as /ˈɪŋlɪʃ/ ING-LISH [closed]) and it suggests:

Word-internal [ŋg] mostly remained (as in finger, anger), but an originally word-final -ng- that becomes word-internal only as the result of the addition of certain suffixes is pronounced [ŋ] (e.g. singing, singer).
The -ng- in English is not word-final, and -lish is not a suffix here, so it isn't expected to be pronounced [ŋ] according to the pronunciation patterns of the most commonly described dialects.

The er is a suffix in both "longer" and "singer" but they are pronounced differently.
Why is "singer" not pronounced as /ˈsɪŋɡər/ or "longer" as /ˈlɒŋər/?
Is "longer" an exception to this rule or there is a specific reason?

herisson · Accepted Answer

Singer and longer both end in the letters -er, but they don't end in the same suffix: singer ends in the -er suffix that forms agent nouns, while longer ends in the -er suffix that forms comparative adjectives.
This is the reason why I included the word "certain" in "the addition of certain suffixes".
Words ending in the comparative suffix -er or the superlative suffix -est could be said to be an exception as a class to the general pattern of suffixes not altering the pronunciation of [ŋ].
But there are very few words with the relevant sequence -ng- + comparative -er, since there aren't many monosyllabic adjectives ending in [ŋ]. In fact, there are only three adjectives that have inflected forms with [ŋg]: younger/youngest, stronger/strongest, longer/longest (all common). The adjective wrong, also common, has what I think are uncommon inflected forms that are pronounced according to dictionaries and my own intuition with [ŋ]: wronger, wrongest. So it's arguable whether there is a regular exception for the category of comparative and superlative forms, or it's just a matter of these specific three adjectives having special comparative and superlative forms.
The same distribution of [ŋ] and [ŋg] in adjective forms is described (and prescribed) by John Walker in his Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (1803) so it seems to have been around in its usual modern form for a least a couple of centuries. But Walker also mentions variation in his time, saying that in Ireland comparative adjective forms like longer are "generally pronounced" with [ŋ] rather than [ŋg] (lxxxi).
In informal off-the-cuff formations, you can sometimes find comparatives or superlatives formed from words of two or more syllables ending in -ing, which I believe like wronger, wrongest would not be pronounced with [ŋg], but with [ŋ]: things like charmingest and boringer.

LPH · Answer

When you know that the agent noun "one that longs" (longer) is pronounced without a /ɡ/: /lɒŋ.ə/ (Longman Pronunciation Dictionary, RP), this might be explained cursorily by referring to the fickleness of usage .

Answered by LPH on January 14, 2021

jamesqf · Answer

Don't know what you mean by "standard Englishes", as they sound just the same to me.  Perhaps your ears are better at picking up subtle differences?
In any case, you need to remember that English spelling is only approximately - sometimes very approximately - phonetic.  Words are spelled the way they are because the standard version is the one approximation, usually of many, that won out when people started compiling & using dictionaries.

Why does "singer" have /ŋ/ and "longer" have /ŋg/?

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