I discovered a typography joke embedded in the very grammar of the Slovak tongue.
So, there's a rule, which I will call The Vowel Lengthening Rule, in which the last vowel of a word becomes longer. This rule only applies to one noun case: the genitive plural. So if the word is a different noun case, such as locative or genitive singular, the rule does not apply.
There's a second rule, which I will call The Great Slovak Vowel Shift Rule, in which some (but not all!) lengthened vowels get raised in height. So, e and o (both high-mid vowels) go to i and u (high vowels), and æ (a low-mid vowel) goes to i as well.
Now, it's really easy to explain these as two rules. But they kind of occur in the same place at the same time, which often means they can be explained with a single rule!
*time elapses*
Oh, hm. I tried combining them into one rule and it turned out really complicated and bad. I wonder why? Why can't I stick the Great Slovak Vowel Shift Rule into the Lengthening Rule?
You can't shift within the lengthening rule because it's case-sensitive.
