Re: OT: Spanish pronouns ("usted", etc.)

On May 17, 2007, at 7:40 PM, Alex Fink wrote:
> On Thu, 17 May 2007 19:15:02 -0500, Eric Christopherson
> <rakko@...>
> wrote:
>> Is that a mainstream interpretation of the allophones? As I
>> understand it, etymologically, "se lo" etc. come from ILLI ILLUM etc.
>> by mostly regular sound changes, without avoidance of cacophony as a
>> "motivation". On the other hand, if at some point both *"le lo" and
>> "se lo" were available to speakers, they might commonly choose "se
>> lo" for that reason.
>
> Just sound change?  That's surprising.  How does ILLI ILLUM
> generate an /s/?
Roughly like this:
ILLI ILLUM [eljelo] > [ljelo] > [Lelo] > gelo [Zelo] > [Selo] > se lo
[selo]

Normally, of course, [S] > [x] instead of [s]. I suppose maybe the
[s] outcome was influenced by the existence of the pronoun "se".
(It's been a while since I read about the development of Spanish. I
probably should have consulted my books before asking here, but oh
well.)

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