If “Psycho” is pronounced “sai-kow” why is “Psychopath” “sai-kuh-path” and not “sai-kow-path”?

Syllable stress

Just wait until you find out how psychopathy is pronounce.

I don't use the schwa in psychopath.

you can pronounce psychopath the same as if it were just psycho-path and that would be ok. This is more of just a vowel generalization to make the word flow smoother, but personally i say psycho and psychopath the same. its worth noting that vowels often have this unwritten shift to the schwa, and sometimes it is only pronounced that way, sometimes it can be the schwa or the full vowel. but normally this is just a natural process to make words easier to say

The pronunciation of psychopath with the full /oʊ/ vowel is available for emphatic speech, and not unusual. However, generally speaking, suffixes can change stress patterning in ways that result in reduced vowels. For example, divine vs. divinity. This is even seen in other languages (French: humain(e)/humanité; Spanish: fotógrafo/fotográfico). English in particular tends to reduce or even omit unstressed vowels in the middle of words. The technical details are way beyond me (and beyond a Reddit comment) but think of *story* vs. *history*/*hist'ry*.

At least where I'm from, you have the pronunciations wrong and they do match. Sai-co (path). The long o is a bit abbreviated when adding the extra syllable, but that's how all long vowels are in the middle of a word.

English has heavy vowel reduction. Sometimes, especially in fast pronunciation, certain unstressed vowels can get smushed into simpler ones. I would say the schwa is the less normal pronunciation, more of a product of fast speech. Most people fully pronounce the o.

The vowel is reduced because it’s unstressed

It’s pronounced the same way in my language (US English)

I'd say just psyko, not saikow nor saikuh

It *is* pronounced "SAI-ko-path"  You may be confusing it with "sai-KAW-pa-thy" (psychopathy) which is the victim of overlaying Latin accent/stress patterns over Greek words.

It is..

I pronounce psycho and psychopath identically. (The psycho part in psychopath, I mean.) sy-ko and sy-ko-path. With psychopath, some speakers will "hurry" over the o part and you'll get sykuh path.

I hear it both ways. And honestly, I think I even say it both ways too. I would say the former if I'm speaking faster, and the latter if I'm speaking slower.

how are you even pronouncing "kow?" because if you're prounouncing it the way cow is prounced then you're prouncing psycho wrong. there's also no schwa in psychopath. it's /ˈsaɪ̯.koʊ̯/ and ˈsaɪkoʊˌpæθ

i mean i personally pronounce it sai-kow-path you don’t need to do the kuh

Sai kow?

The psycho part is pronounced the same where I’m from! Sai-ko

In my accent, the “psycho” in “psychopath” sounds exactly the same as “psycho” on its own.

english

Obligatory [song](https://youtu.be/VBG7RYv6DUA?feature=shared) post.

It’s sai-ko and sai-ko-path

It is pronounced sai-ko-path, at least in my accent

Sai kow just sounds weird. I say sai ko, and sai ko path

Psycho is pronounced sigh koh and psychopath is pronounced sigh ko path. The pronunciation you list is a regional variance and not the standard pronunciation.

Sounds too like 'Sigh, cowpat'

I pronounce them the same….Southern USA.

It's both. In English, unaccented vowels are often reduced to a schwa, at least in part, so unless someone is intentionally emphasizing the syllable it will often be reduced partially or fully to a schwa sound. The most common examples are the articles the (which rhymes with "me" and "be") and a (which rhymes with "bay" and "day") which are pronounced 90% of the time with a schwa as the vowel sound unless they're being specifically stressed for emphasis.

Surprised you know about the schwa but not about vowel reduction

you don’t get schwas at the end of sentences usually

I definitely say the long o like in psycho when I say psychopath.

This is an accent issue.

I think you're misunderstanding what purpose the schwa vowel serves in English. It's the reduced vowel that all vowels tend to become when they're not emphasized enough. But it's not on and off like a switch, the more emphasis the less schwa, even for an unstressed syllable. whoever wrote your pronunciations was trying to capture that "psycho" has enough word-end emphasis to not fully reduce the ending vowel, but it's still a little reduced, and then "psychopath" lets it reduce farther. But I'm still fairly sure that if you compared that reduced sound to, say, the middle vowel in "camera", trimming out the rest of the word, you'd be able to tell they were *slightly* different characters, with training you could probably distinguish which vowel it's reduced from just based on sound. They're reduced, but not identical, most of the time. Native speakers sometimes don't even know about schwa! or they'll act like they don't use it while they're using it right in front of you! Language is weird.

I presume you mean 'sie koh' \[it's always difficult spelling sounds out if you don't speak IPA.\] To me it is the same, just shortened, sie-koh, sie-ko-path. It doesn't fully turn into a schwa, it remains an 'o'. sie as in Simon. koh as in cobalt. ko as in Kurt Cobain.

I think you're wrong on all counts, OP. I've only ever heard "sai-ko" and "sai-ko-path." Though I'm pretty sheltered from other accents here in the USA. 

It can be. There's no difference in conveyance.

It is pronounced sai-kow-path. If someone is saying sai-kuh-path they are mispronouncing it.