Proto-Indo-European

Fragment of a discussion from User talk:Rua

An example would be when the old Latin demonstrative ille became a definite article. New words like Catalan aquest were introduced to create new demonstratives.

CodeCat03:40, 29 January 2013

I see. So, if a phonological change happened to **ē to make it dissimilar, could you guess what it potentially would become?

Jackwolfroven (talk)03:44, 29 January 2013

Phonetic changes almost never take such considerations into account. They are kind of at a lower, more basic level, and are not normally affected by the meanings of words. It does sometimes happen, though, that when sound changes make certain words too similar, a language borrows an alternative form from another dialect or even another language. they was borrowed from Old Norse in that way, to replace the original word which had become too similar to he.

CodeCat03:50, 29 January 2013

Okay. Thank you for the insight; I learned a lot.

Jackwolfroven (talk)03:52, 29 January 2013