Emphasis Placement in Greek-Root Words: A Brutal Example

It is a point of contention between me and most other metal listeners how to pronounce the name of German tech death super stars Necrophagist. The common pronunciation puts primary emphasis on the first syllable and uses a long /o/ in the second syllable and a long /a/ in the third ([nɛ´k-ɹow-fej-ʤIst]). I put primary emphasis on the second syllable, with a short /o/ and schwa-ed /a/ ([nɛk-ɹɔ´-fə-ʤIst]). I believe that standard English pronunciation of Greek-root words supports my pronunciation more than the popular one in this case.

Consider the following examples: psychologist, optometrist, demography, necropolis. All Greek rooted words, all four syllables with emphasis on the second. On the other hand, consider: biological, Necrophagia*. Five syllables, Greek roots, emphasis on the third syllable. The generalizable rule here seems to be in compound Greek-root words, primary emphasis is put on the syllable two before the end.

I think that the confusion here might come from the desire to separate the two root words by emphasis. Evidence in favor of this comes from (a) compound neologisms such as "biorhythm" where emphasis does separate the two roots and (b) the common English rendering of the Greek root for "study" as "-ology" rather than "-logy". That is, words with the root "logos" are conceived of as consisting of (X)+(ology) rather than (X)+(logy). Thus, it is assumed that the emphasis on the "ol" is a consequence of root separation rather than a matter of cadence.

So there, metalheads. That's why I pronounce it that way. Of course, Necrophagist are German, not English, so maybe none of this holds. I'll just leave you with a video of them totally kicking ass so everything is cool.






*Another metal band, though no one cares about these guys too much anymore