I just found out that Czech has “1 kráva; 5 krav” while Slovak has “1 krava; 5 kráv” with exactly opposite vowel length distribution in those two forms. Amusing :)
I wonder how Czech and Slovak vowel length developed, period. (Was it already in Proto-Slavic? Russian doesn't have it and I think Polish doesn't either. I think South Slavic has it, together with pitch accent, but at least some of that is an innovation and I'm not sure how much is inherited.)
I'm sure there are a bunch of papers on the subject but I haven't had an explicit look yet.
Hmm... I should know that about Proto-Slavic but I don't quite remember at the moment and I'm too lazy to look it up today. My impression is that Proto-Slavic lost IE vowel length.
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I wonder how Czech and Slovak vowel length developed, period. (Was it already in Proto-Slavic? Russian doesn't have it and I think Polish doesn't either. I think South Slavic has it, together with pitch accent, but at least some of that is an innovation and I'm not sure how much is inherited.)
I'm sure there are a bunch of papers on the subject but I haven't had an explicit look yet.
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