How to pronounce noun compounds


How do I determine the pronounication of compound nouns such as 来年夏.

Obviously 来年の夏 is pronounced らいねんのなつ but what happens when I remove the の?
Does it just become らいねんなつ? My guess from everything I've read is that it's
more likely to use an 音読み reading, which gives me a choice of らいねんか or らいねんげ.
It would be quite vexing if simply omitting the の changes the pronunciation,
but I fear this may be the case.

Compounds like this don't appear in any dictionaries I've seen, so are there
some general rules to apply?

Here's another example from the same article: 登山者数. Is it とざんしゃかず or とざんしゃすう




来年夏 is pronounced "らいねんなつ".

Words that are not followed by any hiragana are mostly pronounced with 音読み.
However, in this case, 来年夏 is just a short form of 来年の夏, which means it is not
an independent word. 来年夏 is composed by 2 different words "来年(らいねん)" and
"夏(なつ)", and it’s not a single word. As a single word, 来年/夏 are pronounced
らいねん/なつ。 Because 来年夏 is a collocation of these two words, both words have to
be pronounced in the way each of them makes sense as a single word.

The reason why "の" is eliminated is not something grammatical, but it just
works naturally that way.

<来年、今年 or 去年> + <春、夏、秋 or 冬> are all pronounced as <らいねん、ことし、きょねん> +
はる、なつ、あき、ふゆ> for that reason.

This way of eliminating "の" usually sounds more formal, and is used in written
forms or news channels, professors’ lecture... or something a little bit
formal.




来年夏 is pronounced "らいねんなつ".

Words that are not followed by any hiragana are mostly pronounced with 音読み.
However, in this case, 来年夏 is just a short form of 来年の夏, which means it is not
an independent word. 来年夏 is composed by 2 different words "来年(らいねん)" and
"夏(なつ)", and it’s not a single word. As a single word, 来年/夏 are pronounced
らいねん/なつ。 Because 来年夏 is a collocation of these two words, both words have to
be pronounced in the way each of them makes sense as a single word.

The reason why "の" is eliminated is not something grammatical, but it just
works naturally that way.

<来年、今年 or 去年> + <春、夏、秋 or 冬> are all pronounced as <らいねん、ことし、きょねん> +
はる、なつ、あき、ふゆ> for that reason.

This way of eliminating "の" usually sounds more formal, and is used in written
forms or news channels, professors’ lecture... or something a little bit
formal.

