Pronunciation

[dougo]

To my linguist friends: Doug Hoylman asks, "Why does everyone pronounce this game [Chrononauts] as though it started with 'crow'? Every other English word starting with 'chron'—chronology, chronicle, chronometer, chronic—has a short o." I can't think of a good reason, yet I also pronounce it with a long o. Might it be due to the secondary emphasis on the last syllable? The word chronon is pronounced with a long o as well, but I'm not sure that has common enough usage to matter (and it leads to its own pronunciation question).

Comments

[lordjulius.livejournal.com]

Steven Pinker would probably have something to say about it. "The Language Instinct" details exactly why we pronounce words in certain ways. For example, all 'reduplication' words/phrases like 'knickknack' always puts the vowel sound pronounced in front of the vocal cavity first, then the vowel sound pronounced farther back. So you will never see a word like 'knackknick' in English (and, I think, any other language).

I think that if you apply Pinker's theories to 'Chrononauts' you will find that because the prefix 'chrono' is relatively uncommon, our mental grammar reverts to a default when trying to pronounce an unfamiliar word. That default is usually a long vowel. If the game were called "Sononauts" I don't think anybody would ever use a long "o" sound for the mono- part.

It's a fascinating book. If you love language you should read it.

[lordjulius.livejournal.com]

er, the 'sono-' part. i had 'mononauts' there at first.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm a big Pinker fan. How the Mind Works is great too, and cleared up a lot of my confusion about evolution and cognitive science. Haven't gotten around to picking up The Blank Slate yet.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

"Chronological" seems like a counterexample.