Schala says:
“I understand thats how the dictionary says it.That wasn't my question, I'm asking why is it said that way? Mag-us seems more reasonable.”
here is an observation/phenomenon: "2 syllable words with latin suffixes such as -ent, -ant, -ous, -us, -al, -urn have initial tense vowels"
-ant: vacant, secant, mutant
-ent: recent, decent, foment, moment, cadent
-ous: curious, copius, tedious, serious
-us: anus, magus, focus, locus, mucus, modus,genus, virus
-al: anal, nasal, fetal, fatal, legal, regal, tonal
How to deal with consonant clusters?
nexus: nek-sus (you split across sysllables; and the first syllable becomes closed, thereby the first vowel becoming lax)
magnus: mag-nus
You can apply this for other words where you see a cluster. Most dictionaries are extremely bad at syllabicatoin; dictionary.reference.com does a good job at how the word gets syllabified.
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