So why not beh-ind, ah-ead, beeh-ive etc? Is there a good phonetic reason?
As a native speaker of English, because it is. I might yell be (breath) hind
or be-f***ing-hind, never beh (breath) ind or beh-f***ing-hind. If I were
emphasizing my words, it might be a (pause) head, but never ah (pause) ead.
Beehive is a compound word, and would be pronounced as such.
Personally, I would be more likely to yell si- (breath) -nging, not sing- (breath) -ing; although that may simply be because the breath works better after an open syllable. The same applies when I am singing: that word would be broken between notes as si-nging.
It doesn't work to add that other word in this case because it already ends in ng; and anyway that word tends to go where there is a morpheme break, because it is a syntactical rather than a phonetic phenomenon.
-- Peter Kirk [EMAIL PROTECTED] (personal) [EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) http://www.qaya.org/
