the existence of a common Balto-Slavic family, but they do corroborate it. Satemization: The PIE palatovelar consonants *ḱ, *ǵ, *ǵʰ become palatal sibilants *ś, *ź, *ź, while the PIE labiovelar consonants *kʷ, *gʷ, *gʷʰ lose their labialization and merge with the plain velar *k, *g, *gʰ. The palatal sibilants later become plain sibilants *s, *z in all Balto-Slavic languages except Lithuanian. Ruki sound law: *s becomes *š when preceded by *r, *u, *k or *i. In Slavic, this *š later becomes *x (variously spelled , or in the Slavic languages) when followed by a back vowel. Common grammatical innovations Replacement of the original PIE genitive singular ending of thematic (o-stem) nouns, which is reconstructed as , with the ablative ending *-ād (Proto-Slavic *vьlka, Lithuanian vil̃ko, Latvian vilks). Old Prussian, however, has another ending, perhaps stemming from the original PIE genitive: deiwas "god's", tawas "father's". Use of the ending *-ān (from earlier *-āmi) of the instrumental singular in ā-stem nouns and adjectives. This contrasts with Sanskrit -ayā, archaic Vedic -ā. Lithuanian rankà is ambiguous and could have originated from either ending, but the correspondence with East Lithuanian runku and Latvian rùoku point to Balto-Slavic *-ān. Use of the ending *-mis in the instrumental plural, e.g. Lithuanian sūnumìs, Old Church Slavonic synъmi "with sons". This ending is also found in Germanic, while the other Indo-European languages have an ending with -bʰ-, as in Sanskrit . Creation of a distinction between definite (meaning similar to "the") and indefinite adjectives (meaning similar to "a"). The definite forms were formed by attaching the corresponding form of the relative/demonstrative pronoun *jas to the end of the adjective. For example, Lithuanian geràsis 'the good' as opposed to gẽras 'good', Old Church Slavonic dobrъjь 'the good' as opposed to dobrъ 'good'. These forms in Lithuanian, however, seem to have developed after the split, since in older Lithuanian literature (16th century and onwards) they had not yet merged (e. g. naujamę́jame ʽin the new one’ from *naujamén + *jamén). In Lithuanian, the pronoun merged with the adjective having a modern (secondary) pronominal inflection; in Slavic, the pronoun merged with an adjective, having an ancient (primary) nominal inflection. Usage of the genitive case for the direct object of a negative verb. For example, Russian , Lith. knygos neskaičiau 'I haven't read the book'. Shared vocabulary Some examples of words shared among most or all Balto-Slavic languages: *léiˀpāˀ 'tilia' (linden tree):