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Polish is characterized by remarkable consonant clusters such as Szczesliwy ("happy"). However, for a brief stage in the linguistic development of Polish, such consonant clusters were characterized by sequences of rigid, open syllables (CV). A class of vowels, called the yers, was part of a general historical pattern of vowel deletion that resulted in the consonant cluster shown above. This presentation focuses on the mysterious and intriguing yers in current Polish, which sometimes appear and other times disappear, revealing how an analysis calling upon abstract representations allows a synchronic account of the appearance and disappearance of the yers.
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