Fortunatov's law

Not to be confused with Fortunatov–de Saussure's law, a Balto-Slavic accent law.
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Fortunatov's law is the observation, in the development of Sanskrit from Proto-Indo-European, that when *l is followed by a dental consonant, the dental becomes retroflex and the *l is deleted, eg. PIE *bʰelsos > Sanskrit bhā́ṣā (compare Lithuanian bal̃sas) and PIE *poltos > Sanskrit paṭa, Greek péltē.[1] This law is not uniform.

  1. ^ Burrow, T. (1972). "A Reconsideration of Fortunatov's Law". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. 35 (3): 531–545. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00121159. JSTOR 612903. S2CID 154831426.