Further on minimal pairs 3 [was Re: PIE e/o Ablaut]

[petegray]

IE *e/o-Ablaut inflectional or
> >derivational?

> o-form as a noun or adjective,
> and an e-form as a verbal root

Might it not begin as, say, a result of phonetic environment, but in later
PIE be used for derivational purposes?  This "grammaticalising" of an
originally phonetically conditioned variant is known elsewhere in various
languages.

So the fact that it is used derivationally does not prove it began that way.

Peter