On 0, will trillich <will@serensoft.com> wrote: [snip] > all that remains is determining the 'right' sylLAble (and finding > the etymological heritage of each and every word). :) You have hit the nail right, squarely on the head here. A word's pronunciation depends entirely on its history. Since English is a horrid combination of French, middle German and Latin, with some Norse and (a little bit of) Spanish thrown in for good measure, how a word is pronounced depends entirely on which language its roots are in. The "caliope" example is in fact a bit misleading, since it is not spelt that way. The word is in fact calliope, and its pronunciation is cal-LEYE-op-ee; the extra 'l' affecting the pronunciation is a (fairly) regular pattern in English, especially in the parts derived from Latin or French (mostly from Latin anyway). I think. IANALinguist. Tom -- Tom Cook Information Technology Services, The University of Adelaide "There are few things more satisfying than seeing your children have teenagers of their own." - Doug Larson Get my GPG public key: https://pinky.its.adelaide.edu.au/~tkcook/tom.cook-at-adelaide.edu.au
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