Dear all. QQ. Why she pronounces 's' in the word 'Phoebus'.
EDIT: Corrected YouTube tag, you only need the characters after the equals sign.
Re: [French] Phoebus. Why 's' is pronounced?
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:22 am
by garyb
Because that's how the name is pronounced?
Re: [French] Phoebus. Why 's' is pronounced?
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 11:24 am
by Kraut
If it's pronounced there normally would be a supportive e like in confus, confusE. But there are exceptions: plus, crocus, Phoebus
Re: [French] Phoebus. Why 's' is pronounced?
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 12:37 pm
by tastyonions
Names and even nouns taken directly from Greek or Latin often have the final "s" pronounced.
Phébus / Phoebus is a Greek god. Same goes for Arès and Zeus. Some nouns where you see the same thing: infarctus, processus, terminus, bolus.
Re: [French] Phoebus. Why 's' is pronounced?
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 3:17 pm
by Ogrim
Tastyonions is right. I just want to add that, although the main rule is that a final -s is not pronounced, there are exceptions. Apart from Greek or Latin words, there are place names where you will pronounce the final -s, such as the French city Arras or the Belgian town Mons.
Then there are words like "tous", where the s is pronounced if it is not followed by word with a consonant, like in: Bonjour à toutes et à tous. Je suis heureux que nous sommes tous ensemble.
You also pronounce the final -s in "plus" in certain circumstances, like in plus de: Ce logement a plus [plys] de pièces.
Re: [French] Phoebus. Why 's' is pronounced?
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 3:44 pm
by garyb
I don't even think of it in terms of a rule, which was why the initial question confused me a bit and I gave the brusque reply - why wouldn't the S be pronounced? Only after reading the other replies I can understand that the OP might have been incorrectly assuming that a final S is always silent. It's silent in some words and not in others, and these others are common enough that I'd hardly consider them exceptions to some rule.
Re: [French] Phoebus. Why 's' is pronounced?
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 4:01 pm
by tastyonions
Here is a big list of many words with final S pronounced: link
Re: [French] Phoebus. Why 's' is pronounced?
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 5:58 pm
by Serpent
I'm not learning French but it looks like it's pronounced in loan words as opposed to words that directly descend from Latin ones?
Re: [French] Phoebus. Why 's' is pronounced?
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 6:56 pm
by tastyonions
Usually but there are some exceptions ("os" in singular, for example).
Re: [French] Phoebus. Why 's' is pronounced?
Posted: Wed Jun 13, 2018 7:02 pm
by tarvos
tastyonions wrote:Names and even nouns taken directly from Greek or Latin often have the final "s" pronounced.
Phébus / Phoebus is a Greek god. Same goes for Arès and Zeus. Some nouns where you see the same thing: infarctus, processus, terminus, bolus.