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After all these discussion about pronunciation,
phonetics and Antiquity, we can conclude that the pronunciation of Paralititan
is not difficult. The pronunciation in English is what is actually very
difficult, because English writing is so far from a phonetic
writing. Remember Bernard Shaw's "GHOTIUGH".
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2001 7:21 PM
Subject: Re: Paralititan
pronunciation
Filippo, João, and
others,
I have been assuming that this whole discussion has been over
how
"paralititan" should be pronounced _in English_. _Written_ Latin
is
universal (at least in western and central Europe); but each linguistic
community has its own rules about how words created in the written
language
ought to be manifested in speech.
Indeed, the rules for
English are _very_ complex and somewhat flexible (next
time you're at an
English-speaking paleontology conference, keep track of how
many different
pronunciations you hear for, say, "Deinonychosauria" or
"autapomorphy").
My own instinct for "paralititan" was to pronounce it with
a primary
accent on "-ti-" and a secondary accent on "par-", but if Josh and
co.
want the secondary accent on "-ral-", then so be it.
The question of
how the name would have been pronounced in Classical Greek is
sticky.
For starters, it's not quite exactly a Greek compound. The
connector vowel for Greek compounds is -o-, not -i- as in Latin; hence,
paral-O-titan (sorry, Josh).
Second, the length of the
second alpha in "paralos" will affect whether the
connector vowel actually
shows up as omicron or omega. Finally, the accent
will be either on
the second-to-last or the third-to-last syllable, depending
on whether the
alpha in "titan" is long or short, and I don't have my Greek
dictionary
here with me to check.
--Nick P.
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