I have used two rules for pronouncing words and names with double vowels. The first I learned in elementary school: when two vowels go walking the first does the talking. The second rule is for German words and names: paraphrasing rule one: when two vowels appear in German, the second does the talking. Exceptions to both rules are diphthongs, or two vowels pronounced as one vowel sound, e.g., noisy. And while we're at it, Hawaiian words are often mispronounced. Kaua'i is not pronounced Kuh-WHY. It's kuh-WAH-ee.
Learn English – How to pronounce words with double vowels like neither
pronunciation
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Forgetting about the "doubling" of the consonant for a second, in English, some consonants, most notably c and g, but also s, t, x, and the pairs ch and th are softened when followed by softening vowels (usually i and e are the softening vowels, but a and io soften t, s, and a softens x for example).
Most of the "softenings" originated in Late Latin as a result of either intervocalic voicing or palatalization before front vowels.
- Emerson, Ralph H. (1997), "English Spelling and Its Relation to Sound"
- Or, if you want a more accessible resource, the Wikipedia article isn't bad.
Now what does it have to do with a double c?
Let's look at an example: eccentric
The first c is followed by a consonant, c, so it is pronounced as a k, while the second c is followed by an e, so it is pronounced as an s.
Putting those together gives a ks sound.
On the other hand, in a word like occasion, the second c is followed by an a, which doesn't soften the c. So both cs are pronounced as k's, which is in turn pronounced as a single k sound.
You can't figure out the stress on a word ending in -ative from the corresponding word ending in -ation. That's because, as far as I can tell, all words ending in -ation are stressed on the second-to-last syllable. (This is true of the word declaration; the stress on the first syllable is secondary stress, which often occurs two syllables away from the main stress of a word.)
Instead:
If it's two syllables, the stress is on the first syllable.
- nátive
- státive
- dátive
If it's three syllables, the stress is probably on the first syllable. This may be different from where the stress is in the related verb.
- reláte, rélative
- negáte, négative
- sedáte, sédative
- abláte, áblative
- narráte/nárrate, nárrative
I know of only one three-syllable word with the stress on "-at-":
- creáte, creátive
If it's four syllables or more, the primary stress is on the third-to-last syllable or earlier. (However, some polysyllabic words that end in "-ative" and have primary stress earlier than the third-to-last syllable may optionally have secondary stress on, or at least an unreduced /eɪ/ vowel in, the second-to-last syllable; e.g. "ímitative" may be pronounced as either /ˈɪmɪtətɪv/ or /ˈɪmɪteɪtɪv/.)
To get an idea of where an -ative word of four or more syllables is stressed, you can look at the related verb, if it exists. According to English Pronunciation in Use, by Martin Hewings,
In words ending -ative, stress is usually on the same syllable as in the root word.
However, there are some exceptions to this rule that are just stressed on the third-to-last syllable instead, like "interrogative" (which is stressed on the "o", even though "interrogate" is stressed on the "e").
Examples
with the stress on the syllable before "-at-":
- accúse, accúsative
- decláre, declárative
- consérve, consérvative
- represént, represéntative
- provóke, provócative (note: the vowel has a different sound in these two words)
- fórm, fórmative
with the stress two syllables before "-at-"
- spéculate, spéculative
- admínister, admínistrative (with possible secondary stress on the second-to-last syllable)
- coóperate, coóperative
And there are also some words that don't have a corresponding verb (or at least not one that's commonly used):
- quálitative
Best Answer
There is no consistent rule in the English language stating how to pronounce vowels, whether singular or doubled.
Neither is a particularly awkward case, since there are two common pronunciations of the same word: naɪðə or niðə. In the former, the "ei" is pronounced like the word "eye", while in the latter, it is a long "ee" sound, as in the word "weed".