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A coda-less syllable of the form V, CV, CCV, etc. (V = vowel, C = consonant) is called an open syllable or free syllable, while a syllable that has a coda (VC, CVC, CVCC, etc.) is called a closed syllable or checked syllable. They have nothing to do with open and close vowels, but are defined according to the phoneme that ends the syllable: a ...
The schwa / ə / is usually considered neither free nor checked because it cannot stand in stressed syllables. In non-rhotic dialects, non-prevocalic instances of / ɜːr / as in purr, burr and / ər / as in lett er , bann er pattern as vowels, with the former often being the long counterpart of the latter and little to no difference in quality ...
Long vowels shorten in stressed closed syllables. Short vowels lengthen in stressed open syllables. On account of the above, the vowel inventory changes from /iː i eː e a aː o oː u uː/ to /i ɪ e ɛ a ɔ o ʊ u/ , with pre-existing differences in vowel quality achieving phonemic status and with no distinction between original /a/ and /aː/ .
In other cases, however, the use of the open o as opposed to the short o is largely predictable. Just like with /æ/-tensing and the trap–bath split, there seems to be an open-syllable constraint. Namely, the change did not affect words with /ɑ/ in open syllables unless they were closely derived from words with /ɑ/ in closed syllables.
If the penult contains a short vowel in an open syllable, the stress falls on the antepenult: e.g., stá.mi.na, hy.pó.the.sis. If the penult contains a long vowel; a diphthong; a closed syllable (with any length of vowel); or is followed by z, the stress falls on the penult. Long vowel: cicāda > cicáda, exegēsis > exegésis.
This took place after open syllable lengthening; the syllable before a geminate was a closed syllable and so vowels were not lengthened before (originally) doubled consonants. The loss of gemination may have been stimulated by its small functional load since few minimal pairs of words existed that were distinguished solely by that feature. [5]
During the Common Slavic period, a tendency, known as the law of open syllables, led to a series of changes that eliminated closed syllables. By the Old Church Slavonic period, every syllable, without exception, ended in a vowel. Such changes included: monophthongization of diphthongs,
Vowel insertion in the middle of a word can be observed in the history of the Slavic languages, which had a preference for open syllables in medieval times. An example of this is the Proto-Slavic form * gordŭ 'town', in which the East Slavic languages inserted an epenthetic copy vowel to open the closed syllable , resulting in городъ ...