Attested diachronic changes
Sound changes
The Rule of Change
(So called because the word "change" resulted from it ;)) In proto-French, bia at the end of a word changed to ge, and mbia changed to nge.
- cambia -> change
- salvia -> *salbia (whence German Salbei) -> *salge -> sauge "sage (plant)"
- simia -> *simbia -> singe "monkey"
- fimbria -> *frimbia -> fringe
The Rule of the Maltese Bonfire
El milagro de la palabra lo salvo del peligro de la culebra. See Acts 28. In Spanish, VrVClV -> VlVCrV.
- miraculum -> *miraglo -> milagro
- parabola -> *parabla -> palabra
- periculum -> *periglo -> peligro
This happened at the same time as Portuguese split from Spanish, or in a race condition with the deletion of intervocalic l and n in Portuguese. The first two words are milagre and palavra, but perigo did not metathesize, but lost its l like cobra.
Anyone who has these words in Old Spanish or any attestation of French intermediate forms, please add. PierreAbbat 18:23, 29 December 2007 (PST)
Morphological changes
Syntactic changes
Coordinating negative in French
French acquired a coordinating negative (it normally takes two words to simply negate a verb) by extension of je ne marche pas "I'm not walking a step" to all words.
