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==Syntax==
==Syntax==


Unevenness of existing records and huge gaps in the chronology among Indo-European languages make the reconstruction of PIE grammar a difficult task. Discoveries of Hittite, Tocharian and Mycenaean Greek in the 20th century have made changes in the data base on which the reconstruction of PIE is based that in turn have modified existing views of PIE. .
Less is known about the syntax of LA than about its morphology.


Many of the older well-documented languages, such as Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, have rich morphologies with clearly marked gender and number, as well as elaborately marked case systems for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives. Verbs in these languages also have elaborately marked systems of tense, aspect, mood, and voice, in addition to person, number, and gender. Reconstructed PIE is based on the assumption that it contained all the features found in attested languages. If a given language lacks a particular feature, it is assumed that the feature was lost or that it had merged with other features.
====Word Order====
A subject of conjecture and debate, popular theory holds that Subject-Object-Verb was likely used, as this is the word order still found in ***, ***, and, to some extent, in ***.


Modern Indo-European languages reflect the rich morphology of PIE to various degrees. For instance, Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Baltic, Slavic, Celtic, Armenian have extremely rich morphologies. On the other hand, Germanic, Romance, Albanian, and Tocharian do not possess quite as many finely differentiated morphological features.


Nouns, pronouns and adjectives
(PAA)
 
Case
Sanskrit had the most cases (8), followed by Old Church Slavonic, Lithuanian, and Old Armenian (7), Latin (6), Greek, Old Irish, Albanian (5), Germanic (4).
Gender
The three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) have survived in a number of Indo-European languages.
Number
The three numbers (singular, dual, plural) survived in Sanskrit, Greek, and Old Irish. Vestiges of the dual number can be found in many other Indo-European languages.
Adjective-Noun agreement
Adjective-noun agreement has survived in many Indo-European languages.
Verbs
Reconstructed PIE verbs had different sets of endings tense/aspect, voice and mood in addition to person and number. :
 
Tense and aspect
It is thought that the PIE verb system was aspect-based, although traditionally, aspect has been confused with tense. Although tense was not formally marked in PIE, most Indo-European languages define their verbal systems in terms of tense, rather than aspect. .
Voice
PIE had two voices: active (e.g., The child broke the glass) and medio-passive which combined reflexive and passive voices (e.g., The child washed himself and The child was washed by his mother). In addition to the active voice, various Indo-European languages use the middle or the passive voices.
Mood
It is hypothesized the PIE had four moods: indicative, optative, subjunctive, and imperative. Most of these moods exist in all Indo-European languages.
Person and number
PIE verbs were marked for person (1st, 2nd, 3rd) and number (singular, dual, plural).
Word order
Less is know about the syntax of PIE than about its morphology. What is known about PIE word order, therefore, is a subject of conjecture and debate. It is thought likely that word order in PIE sentences was Subject-Object-Verb. This word order is found in Latin, Hittite, Vedic Sanskrit, Tocharian, and to some extent in Greek.
 
Vocabulary
The comparative method enables linguists to reconstruct a basic PIE vocabulary referring to many common elements of their culture. This basic vocabulary is not uniformly attested across all Indo-European languages which suggests that some words may have developed later or were borrowed from other languages. Among words that are reliably reconstructed are words for day, night, the seasons, celestial bodies (sun, moon, stars), precipitation (rain, snow), animals (sheep, horse, pig, bear, dog, wolf, eagle), kinship terms (father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter), tools (axe, yoke, arrow).
 
The grammatical systems of all modern Afro-Asiatic languages share certain features. These features are not present in all Afro-Asiatic languages.
 
word roots that consist of three consonants;
use of infixes, rather than prefixes and suffixes, to represent grammatical relations and form new words;
use of infixes, rather than prefixes and suffixes, to represent grammatical relations and form new words;
three cases: nominative, genitive, and accusative with vestiges of the ergative case;
three numbers: singular, dual, and plural;
two genders in the singular;
similarities in the pronouns;
well-developed binary system of verbal aspects;
stem modifications whereby groups of related verbal stems, each with its own type of meaning, are derived from one root;
Verb – Subject – Object word order;
Vocabulary
The differences in the vocabulary of individual languages belonging to the Afro-Asiatic language family can be explained by internal developments after these languages have lost contact with each other,and by the influence of languages that were spoken by people who inhabited the lands that came to be occupied by speakers of Afro-Asiatic languages.


==Vocabulary==
==Vocabulary==
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