Phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet

Velar nasal
The phonemic status of the velar nasal consonant [ŋ] is disputed; one analysis claims that
the only nasal phonemes in English are /m/ and /n/, while [ŋ] is an allophone of /n/ found
before velar consonants. Evidence in support of this analysis is found in accents of the north-
west Midlands of England where [ŋ] is only found before /k/ or /ɡ/, with sung being
pronounced as [sʌŋɡ]. However, in most other accents of English sung is pronounced [sʌŋ],
producing a three-way phonemic contrast sum – sun – sung /sʌm sʌn sʌŋ/ and supporting
the analysis of the phonemic status of /ŋ/. In support of treating the velar nasal as an
allophone of /n/, 
Sapir (1925)
 claims on psychological grounds that [ŋ] did not form part of a
series of three nasal consonants: "no naïve English-speaking person can be made to feel in
his bones that it belongs to a single series with m and n. ... It still feels like ƞg."
[103]
More
recent writers have indicated that analyses of [ŋ] as an allophone of /n/ may still have merit,
even though [ŋ] may appear both with and without a following velar consonant; in such
analyses, an underlying /ɡ/ that is 
deleted
 by a 
phonological rule
would account for
occurrences of [ŋ] not followed by a velar consonant.
[104][105][106]
Thus the phonemic
representation of sing would be /sɪnɡ/ and that of singer is /sɪnɡə/; in order to reach the
phonetic form [sɪŋ] and [sɪŋə], it is necessary to apply a rule that changes /n/ to [ŋ] before /k/
or /ɡ/, then a second rule that deletes /ɡ/ when it follows [ŋ].
1. /n/ 
→
[ŋ] / ____ velar consonant
2. /ɡ/ 
→
∅
/ [ŋ] _____
These produce the following results: