Introduction
It is disputed how many vowels Proto-Indo-European (PIE) had, as well as what counts as a "vowel" in that language. It is generally agreed that at least four vowels existed, normally denoted /e/, /o/, /eː/ and /oː/. All of these vowels are morphologically conditioned to varying extents. The two long vowels are less common than the short vowels and their morphological conditioning is especially strong, suggesting that in an earlier stage there may not have been a length opposition, and a system with as few as two vowels (or even only one vowel, according to some researchers) may have existed.
In addition, the surface vowels and were extremely common, and syllabic sonorants existed. All of these alternate in various circumstances with sonorant consonants /j/ /w/ /m/ /n/ /r/ /l/. (In Indo-European studies, the sound of /j/ is usually denoted with a y, and this convention will be used below.) For example, the root of the PIE word */yugóm/ "yoke" with /u/ also appears in the verb */yewg-/ "to yoke, harness, join" with /w/. Similarly, the PIE word */dóru/ "tree, wood" is reconstructed with genitive singular */dréws/ and dative plural */drúmos/. For this and other reasons, it is often suggested that these sounds should underlyingly be treated as consonants, with the vocalic segments as allophonic variants. Note, however, that not all languages with similar alternations are treated in this fashion. In addition, some authors (e.g. Ringe 2006) have argued that there is strong evidence for reconstructing a non-alternating phoneme /i/ in an addition to an alternating phoneme /j/, as well as weaker evidence for a non-alternating phoneme /u/.
In addition, all daughter Indo-European languages have a segment /a/, and those languages with long vowels generally have long /aː/ /iː/ /uː/. At one point, PIE was reconstructed with all of these vowels. Modern versions incorporating the laryngeal theory, however, tend to view these vowels as later developments of sounds that should be reconstructed in PIE as larnygneals */h₁ h₂ h₃/. For example, /aː/ is generally reconstructed as */eh₂/; /iː/ /uː/ are reconstructed as */iH/ */uH/, where /H/ represents any laryngeal; and /a/ has various origins, among which are a "syllabic" (i.e. any laryngeal when not adjacent to a vowel). Some researchers, however, have argued that a phoneme /a/ must be reconstructed that cannot be traced back to any laryngeal.
Any of the sonorant consonants can comprise the second part of a complex syllable nucleus, i.e. they can form diphthongs with any of the vowels /e o eː oː/, e.g. */ey/, */oy/, */eːy/, */oːy/, */ew/, */ow/, */em/, */en/, etc.
Read more about this topic: Proto-Indo-European Phonology, Phonemic Inventory, Vowels
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