The key issue here is why "wherever I":

wɛɹˈɛvɚɹ a_ɪ

is sometimes transformed into one of the following:

wɛɹˈɛvɚ sᵻɹˈɪlɪklˌɛɾɚfˈoː_ɹbˈiːˈɛf a_ɪ
wɛɹˈɛvɚɹ ˈæɹəʁɪklˌɛɾɚsˈɪkssˈɛvənˈɛf tˈuː slˈæʃ a_ɪ
wɛɹˈɛvɚ ˈæt kˈo_ʊləŋkˌa_ɪ

This is most likely due to the use of the $text attribute, and could therefore affect other words. I also wonder if it is related to #690 which occurred when a rule was missing.

The first thing to do would be to check if this occurs on espeak 1.48.08, and if not run a bisect to identify which commit caused this bug. Alternatively, the behaviour needs to be understood -- what is espeak-ng doing when it is inserting those pronunciations.

Ideally, a short reproducible test case should be added to the tests to ensure that the bug is not reintroduced.