This question seems worth reopening

Question

The pronunciation rules of words which begin 'Com-, Col-, Cor-' or 'Con-'

Originally, this question here didn't necessarily seem well put. It wasn't clear exactly what aspects of the pronunciation of the cor/com/con/col prefix the Origninal Poster should be worried about. I've had a bit of an edit of the question. I think that from a phonetics and phonology point of view, it's actually got some gristle worthy of a site for linguists and enthusiasts of English. Here's the text of it for you:

Very often these words have an /ɒ/ vowel, like in the word hot - in Gen American, I think it's the vowel /ɑː/. Other times they may have a schwa, /ə/, like the first vowel in amazing. Sometimes they seem to have a syllabic consonant, /n/.

Sometimes there even seem to be two words which are spelled the same but have a different pronunciation. For example content meaning "happy" and content as in "the content of the lecture", for which Cambridge Dictionaries gives the transcriptions /kənˈtent/ and /ˈkɒntent/ [US:/ˈkɑːntent/] respectively.

Here are some examples with transcriptions from Cambridge Dictionaries Online:

• common /ˈkɒm.ən/
  • commercial /kəˈmɜː.ʃəl/
  • colleague /ˈkɒl.iːɡ/
  • collection /kəˈlek.ʃən/
  • correlate /ˈkɒr.ə.leɪt/
  • correct /kəˈrekt/

So my question is:

1. Is there any rule for whether a schwa or full /ɒ/ or /ɑː/ is used?
2. Are there generalisations that can be made which will help me have a good guess at which to use.
3. Are there any rules that will enable me to tell in certain restricted situations.
4. If I'm unsure about a particular example, would I be better to go with a schwa or a full vowel. Why?

Any chance of your reopen vote here?

Answer 1

I really don't think this was worth re-opening in its present form, because of three problems, all mentioned in the comments there, that you have chosen not to address:

• It is not, and never has been, the case that there is just one pronunciation for a word in English. Different countries, areas, and social groups have different dialects, and pronounce words differently.
• It is doubtful, to say the least, whether words go from spelling to pronunciation. Historically, of course, spelling was merely a rough attempt to represent the spoken word: Shakespeare famously spelt his name a dozen different ways, without worrying about whether this meant 'changing his name'.
• There is no reason to believe in the existence of a 'rule' for any aspect of English, in the sense that words must follow certain regulations. It is sometimes possible to deduce generalizations in restricted areas, such as common etymologies or impossible phonemes; but 'every instance of these three letters' is not such an area.

Since others seem to think this is a useful question, I won't vote to re-close it just yet; but you do need to consider these points.