A few PIE questions

From: Gwydionash@...
Message: 250
Date: 1999-11-13

I would appreciate any information anyone could give me about the following
questions relating to PIE grammar and phonetics.

1. How did laryngeals affect roots that began with consonants? For example,
the PIE root *Hme becomes "eme", "emou", and "emoi" in the oblique cases of
Attic Greek when used after prepositions (except for "pros me"), and the
enclitics "me", "mou", and "moi" are used without prepositions. Is this a
PIE rule? And are there rules governing when a larygeal affects an initial
consonant and when it doesn't?

2. How do IE linguists think the schwa was pronounced? And did it tend to
change to a common vowel in the daughter languages? (I have noticed it
changing to "a" a lot).

3. I know that there was no fixed form of a PIE infinitive, but what are
some of the ways it could be formed and what would some of the PIE endings
be?

4. What is the difference between athematic and thematic verbs? (I don't
even know if this is answerable because I have not seen a general consensus).
I have read that accent in the daughter languages (Sanskrit and Greek) is a
sign of whether or not a PIE verb is thematic or athematic. Is this true?
And are there any other ways to tell?

5. Is the statement that "primary endings are used in the present indicative
and secondary endings are used in the imperfect and aorist and in the
optative, with fluctuation in the subjunctive" true?

6. In relation to primary and secondary endings, does a vowel always have to
precede the ending? If so, what determines the vowel (for example is it the
outcome in specific daughter languages)?

Once again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Chad Brown