From Indo-European Languages

A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, Second Edition
Preface · What's New · Conventions
The Indo-European language family
Traditional views · The Theory of the Three Stages · Urheimat · Other theories · Relationship to other languages · Schleicher's fable · Northern (Europe's IE) and Southern} (Greek, Armenian, Aryan) dialects · Anatolian languages · Modern Indo-European
Letters and Sounds
Classification of sounds · Sounds of the letters · Syllables · Quantity · Accent · Vowel change · Consonant change · Peculiarities of orthography · Kindred forms
Words and Their Forms
Inflection · Root, stem and base · Gender · General rules of gender ·Vowel grade · Word formation · Compound words · Names of persons
Nouns
a-Declension · o-Declension · Nouns in i, u and diphthong · Nouns in consonant · Heteroclites · Vocalism before the declension · Vocalism in the plural · Accent in declension
Adjectives
Inflection of adjectives · The motion · Adjective specialization ·Comparison of adjectives · Numerals
Pronouns
Personal · Reflexive · Possessive · Anaphoric · Demonstrative · Interrogative and indefinite · Relative · Other
Verbs
Forms of the verb · The conjugations · The four stems · Mood stems · The voice · Noun and adjective forms · Conjugated examples · The verbal accent
Particles
Adverbs · Derivation of adverbs · Prepositions · Conjunctions
Syntax
The sentence · Morphosyntax · Sentence modifiers · Verbal modifiers · Nominal modifiers · Modified forms of PIE simple sentences · Syntactic categories

2.9.1. Indo-European words may show a variable orthography, although a unified one should be strongly encouraged.

2.9.1. Vowel Changes that influence the way MIE is written include the alternating PIE forms that gave different frozen derivatives.

A vowel change that should not affect MIE orthography is what many reconstruct as PIE [ə] or schwa, generally evolved as North-West IE a; as, PIH *ph2tér- → PIE *pətér- → EIE patér-, father; PIH *bhh2tis → PIE *bhətis → EIE bhatis, appearance; PIH *anh2mos → PIE *anəmos → EIE ánamos, breath, and so on.

NOTE. This Late PIE reconstructed schwa (see §2.2.1) is important for the different vocalism of EIE, PII and PGk; cf. MIE patér- with Aryan pitár-, or MIE ánamos with Hellenic ánemos.

2.9.2. Consonant Changes that should not affect MIE orthography, already seen, include voiced sibilants, as nisdos [‘niz-dos], kersrom [‘kerz-rom]; and voiceless occlusives, as pods [pots], agtós [ak-‘tos], leghtrom [‘lek-trom], -pd- [bd].

NOTE. Although the accuracy of some allophones in PIE is certain, for practical reasons the phonetically correct notation is therefore avoided in favour of the phonemically correct notation.

Changes that usually affect how MIE is written include commonly reconstructed variants, as egh-, ek-, outside, out, from; and doubious cognates, as necr-, dark, and neqt-, night, maybe from a common PIH suffixed *negw-, to dawn.

2.9.3. About semivowels, as a general exception, they are not written when the semivowel is the last sound of the first word in a compound; e.g., for triathlom (from tri-, three, and Gk. athlon, “contest”), triathlon, we won’t write *trjathlom; sindhueurōpājóm, and not *sindhweurōpājóm; etc.

NOTE. In Modern Indo-European, compounds may be written with and without hyphen, as in the different modern Indo-European languages. Nevertheless, the older, not hyphenated version is preferred for formal writings; as, sindhueurōpājóm, and not *sindhu-eurōpājóm, compare Eng. Indo-European, Ger. Indoeuropäisch, Fr. Indo-européen, It., Sp. indoeuropeo, Gal.-Pt. Indo-européu, Cat. indoeuropeu, Du. Indo-Europees, Pol. indoeuropejski, Lit. indoeuropiečių, Ir. Ind-Eorpach, Russ. индоевропейский, Gk. ινδοευρωπαϊκή, Ira. هندواروپایی, Hin. हिन्द-यूरोपीय, etc.

2.9.4. The vocallic allophones [r̥], [l̥], [m̥], [n̥] may be written, as in Latin transliterations of Sanskrit texts, as ṛ, ḷ, ṃ, and ṇ, to help the reader clearly identify the sonants; therefore, alternative writings ṇmṛtós, inmortal, kṃtóm, hundred, wodṛ, water, etc. are also possible.

2.9.5. An Apostrophe is used to mark the ommited letter of a contraction in word-final position, usually in elisions at the end of imperative verbs, especially in spoken language; as cemj’ for cemje, come here; or takej’ for takēje, shut up.

2.9.6. An Acute Accent is written over the vowel or semivowel in the stressed syllable, except when stress is on the second to last syllable (or paenultima) and in monosyllabic words. Accented long vowels and sonants are represented with special characters. The weak vowel of a possible diphthong is also accented; so in eími [e-‘i-mi], I go, and not *eimi, pronounced [‘ei-mi] if left unaccented.

2.9.7. The forms with the copulative -qe, and, and disjunctive -w, or, are usually written by adding it to the preceding word, as in Latin -que, but with a hyphen.

2.9.8. The capital letters are used at the beginning of the following kinds of words:

1. the names of days, months, seasons and public holidays; as, Jānwārjos, January, Samos, summer, Newos Atnos, New Year, etc.
2. the names of people and places, including stars and planets; as, Sāwel, Sun, Aleksanṓr, Alexander, Deiwos, God, Sindhu, Indus (river), Teutiskolondhom, Germany (cf. O.H.G. Diutisk-lant<*þeudiska-landam), etc.

   NOTE. In old IE languages demonyms were not written in capital letters; as, Eurṓpā, eurōpājós; Angljā or Angljolondhom, England (cf. O.E. Engla-land, “land of the Angles”), but angljós, English; Hispānja, Spain, but hispānós, Spanish; teutiskós, German; and so on.

3. people’s titles, as Prōbhastṓr, Professor, Kelomnelis, Colonel, Rēgtṓr, rector,
4. Skeuros, North, Déksinā, South, Áusteros, East, Éperom, West, and their derivatives.

   NOTE. Germanic Nertros, lower, later North, from ner-, lower, bottom, and Suntos, “of the Sun”, later South, possibly from alternative root Sun- of Sāwel, sun; Gmc. West comes probably from the same root as wespros, evening.

5. in official or well-established place names; as Plátejā, the Square, etc.

References

• Quiles, Carlos, López-Menchero, Fernando, A Grammar of Modern Indo-European, Second Edition, Indo-European Language Association, 2009, ISBN 9781448682065