[tied] Re: Balto-Slavic C-stems / long vowel endings

> Other things being equal, high vowels are less prominent than mid and
> low in terms of intensity and duration. It's a cross-linguistic
> tendency; note e.g. the reduction of short i, u and y to ë (a kind of
> schwa) in Kashubian, the failure of the high vowels to undergo
> open-syllable lengthening in most accents of Middle English, etc.
> Conversely, weak vowels are often raised (as in Latin: *kékanai >
> cecini:).

Cf Japanese which has a CV syllable structure (or is forced into that
shape by its syllabaric optional writing system), but the syllables in
Ci and Cu tend to become C (eg c^i -> c^, tu -> tsu -> ts).


Torsten