Hah! Brilliant test! For me, I actually do say "poah lo(h)-khi" ! But who knows... perhaps I've simply been mispronouncing it all my life, based on my misunderstanding of which morpheme was involved (it gets kinda circular at this stage...) .Mark Yong wrote:I gave it another acid test: Instead of 跋倒 pŏat tó, this time I tried mumbling 跋落去 pŏat lōq (k)hĭ (which is another common alternative way to say ‘fall down’). Now, this could be a vestige from the afore-mentioned t- fusion, but again, it still comes out as pŏat, not pŏah.
Again, I am not a native speaker, so perhaps one of the others could comment...?
So, yes indeed, please: more native speakers' input on how they say "poah-to" and "poah-loh-khi"...