Abstract We investigate the pronunciation of English compounds ending in -man (e.g. policeman, clergyman, mailman), some of which are usually pronounced with a full vowel in -man (mailman), some usually with a reduced vowel (policeman), while other words vary between the two (businessman, gunman). Is it possible to predict when the vowel is reduced or not? We investigate a number of factors that could play a role in this issue: (i) the age of introduction of the word into the English language, (ii) the frequency of the word in the synchronic language, (iii) the meaning of -man in the specific compound, (iv) number of syllables, (v) stress pattern and (vi) spelling variation. Although some of these points have been discussed in the literature before, we present the first large full-scale quantitative investigation of the question whether any of these factors are reliable predictors of the pronunciation (and if so, which one predicts the pronunciation best), as well as the interaction between these factors.

中文翻译：

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英语-英语化合物的元音减少

摘要我们研究了以-man结尾的英语化合物的发音（例如Policeman，cleergyman，mailman），其中一些通常在-man（mailman）中以完整的元音发音，一些通常以简化的元音（policeman）发音，而其他两者之间的字词有所不同（商人，枪手）。是否可以预测元音何时减少？我们调查了许多可能在此问题中起作用的因素：（i）将单词引入英语的年龄，（ii）同步语言中单词的出现频率，（iii）- （iv）音节数，（v）重读模式和（vi）拼写变化。尽管其中一些观点之前已经在文献中讨论过，