Re: Real language questions

>Ciege Engine wrote:
>>
>> [Im needing this information for school spelling team.
>> help is most appreciated!]
>>
>> 1. How can the word protozoon be pronounced
>> proh-toe-ZOE-an?
Or did you have in mind proh-toe-zoon? (rhyme with moon)? (a) it's a learned
compound of Greek words; and as everyone ;-) ought to know, zoon was 2
syllables (b) it's sometimes written with a dieresis over one of the o's, I
forget which-- protozöon or protozoön (probably the latter).  Like coöperate
or reënter, though that's a little old fashioned.....

Another one for the team:  dieresis is also spelled diaeresis.

Otherwise Nik's reply has it right.
>
>Presumably by analogy with other -an/-on words.  Final -an or -on tend
>to be pronounced with a schwa.  Actually, unstressed vowels in general
>have a tendency to become schwa ESPECIALLY in final syllables, so if one
>pronounces that word as four syllables, it's pretty much inevitable that
>the second part will be schwa.
>
>> 2. Why did modern englih drop the pronounced -ed
>
>We did?  :-)  We never dropped the -ed, just the vowel.  :-)  Well, some
>speakers do drop the /d/, too.  But at any rate, it's because it was
>unstressed, the vowel became /@/, just like in rapid speech, people tend
>to say /plis/ for "police"
Still survives in poetry (sometimes) and a few more or less commonly used
forms-- learned (see above!), beloved, accursed.  Again, a little old
fashioned.

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