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Why is service pronounced the way it is and not like device even though the last 4 letters of the words are identical?

I would think that if they end the same way, the same pronunciation rules should apply as well.

I also checked Wiktionary.org and it says both words evolved from Old French where 'service' originated from 'servis' and 'device' originated from 'devis'. Again identical end of the word spelling.

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    In English orthography there are no rules, only tendencies! – StoneyB on hiatus Aug 16 '12 at 12:53
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    Why is "service" pronounced so much like "crevice" – is that what you're asking? – J.R. Aug 16 '12 at 13:15
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    "I would think that if they end the same way, the same pronunciation rules should apply as well." Just like head and bead? Or bough, cough, rough, though, and through? It's hard to make that kind of assertion about a language that gives us the likes of live and live, read and read, and wind and wind. – J.R. Aug 16 '12 at 13:30
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    @J.R. Do you mean that English pronunciation is kind of chaotic? Let's see... – Julien Ch. Aug 16 '12 at 14:45
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    "the same pronunciation rules" I don't think we generally have pronunciation rules in English. Spellings were normally made to represent pronunciations, rather than the other way around. – bdsl Dec 28 '14 at 20:04
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I believe this is due to the Great Vowel Shift.

In Middle English the "i" in device used to be prounounced as in service but later shifted to a /ai/ diphtong because it was bearing the stress.

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    I can't speak to the history, and I'm not an OF scholar, so I can't say what stress, if any, the words had before they migrated across the Channel. But certainly anyone who used the words would be aware that the orthographic identity of the endings is accidental: service is serv- with a suffix, device is vis- with a prefix. That sets the stress, after which the GVS takes over. – StoneyB on hiatus Aug 16 '12 at 12:50
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    This has less to do with GVS, more to do with stress, as John Lawler described. – RainDoctor Aug 16 '12 at 17:59
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    Well I think it has to do with both, the sounds used to be the same (length excepted) and diverged during the GVS because one was stressed and the other was not. – Julien Ch. Aug 17 '12 at 7:05
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It's entirely a matter of syllable stress. English is a stress-timed language. Only a stressed syllable can have a full vowel in English; unstressed syllables are centralized and reduced as much as possible, especially in rapid speech.

SERvice is stressed on the first syllable, so the vowel in the first syllable gets fully pronounced ['sɝ], while the second unstressed syllable is reduced to shwa [vəs].

On the hand, deVICE is stressed on the second syllable, so the vowel in that syllable gets fully pronounced ['vəys], while the first unstressed syllable is reduced to shwa [də].

Spelling has very little to do with pronunciation in English; its spelling was invented for a different language and doesn't work at all well for modern English. This fact explains a lot of other things, including why you shouldn't be worried if it's not logical. In fact, you're right. -- it's not logical.

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  • How do unstressed full vowels work? – tchrist♦ Aug 16 '12 at 17:43
  • I suspect they're less common in American than in British speech. I rarely come across them. – John Lawler Aug 16 '12 at 18:28
  • Are you sure? You reduce chromosome, ambition, humanity, tofu, Pleistocene, pharoah, kryptonite, plaintain? I don’t believe I’ve heard such an accent. I bet you don’t reduce those. – tchrist♦ Aug 16 '12 at 18:43
  • ['kroməˌsom, ˌæm'bɪʃn, ˌyʊ'mænəɾi, 'toˌfu, 'playstəˌsin, ... ] Apparently secondary stress is against someone's religion; but not mine. – John Lawler Aug 16 '12 at 18:50
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    The most interesting part of what you said is the bit about how seriously they expect to be taken. I don’t know that I’ve ever realized that was a factor. – tchrist♦ Aug 16 '12 at 23:12
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The pronunciation of device might actually be considered less predictable than the pronunciation of service (if we compare them to words like novice and crevice). But then again, in the word advice we have the same pronunciation as in device. The stress pattern of device and advice may be related to their morphology: in both words, the first syllable was originally a prefix. It may also be related to the existence of the verbs devise and advise; if so, another similar example may be abuse n. and abuse v.

I'm going to ignore the presence of the letter "v", since I don't think it adds much information. So, here are some overall tendencies I see for the pronunciation of words that end with -ice.

Monosyllabic words ending in -ice all have /aɪs/ (unless the i is part of a vowel digraph, as in voice, juice, sluice). Some examples: ice, price, spice, slice.

Polysyllabic words derived from these also have /aɪs/, such as de-ice, re-price, overspice.

Most other polysyllabic words ending in -ice have fully unstressed /ɪs/ or /əs/. Of the words pronounced like this, most are nouns. There are some verbs, such as notice and apprentice, but they all have corresponding nouns spelled and pronounced the same way. In U.S. English, the verb practice also falls in this category. In British English the verb is spelled practise, although standardly pronounced the same as the noun. The OED has an interesting note about practise:

The word was originally stressed on the second syllable [...] and this is still the case in some regional varieties, especially in Scots (hence such spellings as practize, practeeze, practeese). The stress was subsequently shifted to the first syllable, with devoicing of the final consonant, probably by association with practice n.

Some examples, with the stressed vowel in bold: crevice, justice, lattice, notice, novice, artifice, avarice, edifice, orifice, accomplice, apprentice, interstice.

A small number of polysyllabic words have /aɪs/; as mentioned in other answers, these words always have primary or tertiary stress on the last syllable (and none of them have primary stress on the second-to-last syllable). This category has a greater proportion of verbs. (The reason why I've discussed part of speech is that in English verbs are generally more likely than nouns to have some degree of stress on the final syllable; we can see this in contrasts like associate n. versus associate v., or the noun ending -ity versus the verb ending -ify.) As StoneyB mentions in a comment, the stress may also be affected when the first syllable of a word comes from a Latin prefix. Here is a list of all the words like this I found, with the primary-stressed syllable in bold:

  • advice n. (pairs with advise v.; from Latin past participle vīsum with the preposition/prefix a(d-) )
  • device n. (pairs with devise v.; apparently ultimately from Latin dīvīs-/dīvidere, from videre with the prefix dis-)
  • entice v. (from Vulgar Latin intitiāre, with the prefix in-)
  • suffice v. (from Latin sufficere, with the prefix sub-)
  • sacrifice n., v. (from French, ultimately from Latin sacrificium. The OED says the verb was derived from the noun)
  • satisfice v. (note: this word was coined by combining satisfy and suffice)
  • cockatrice n. (however, this word is also pronounced with /ɪs/)

There are also a couple of words spelled with -ice that are usually pronounced with stressed /iːs/: police, caprice. They were borrowed relatively recently from French, and don't show the signs of the Great Vowel shift.

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I'm going out on a limb a little but, I'm fairly sure that words that have two consonants followed by "ice" are pronounced like service. Words where "ice" is preceded by a vowel and consonant are pronounced like device.

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    I believe just one example will suffice to disprove that theory :-) – Kate Gregory Aug 16 '12 at 12:49
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    That's cheating ;) it's really one letter. One sounded letter anyway. I need to go and hide my shame in a crevice. – Chris Aug 16 '12 at 13:51
  • Please play nice. – bib Aug 16 '12 at 13:58
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    While your theory is enticing, I can't help noticing counterexamples. – Peter Shor Aug 16 '12 at 17:47
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    Had a look. There's only about a dozen or so of words where the letter pattern is vowel, consonant and followed by "ice." The only exception for pronunciation in this group is "sacrifice." The sixy or so words that aren't in the above group don't follow much pattern in pronunciation. I think i've proven my answer thoroughly wrong. – Chris Aug 17 '12 at 0:31
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The Great vowel shift split them,people used to say them the same then they took different roads

Service sɛrviːs > sɜɹvɪis > sɚvəs/sɜves(sairvees > sairvihys > servihs > srrvuhs/suhvuss)

Device dɛviːs > devɪis > dɪvəɪs>dəvæɪs(dehvees > dehvihys > duhvuhys > duhvaahys)

I am not exactly sure how and at what combination did the vowels change but the above is pretty much what happened)

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