The verbs of the Hittite hi-conjugation fall into three classes according to the final sound of the stem. In spite of more or less irregularity in each class, the following paradigms will represent the usual types of conjugation.

It is disputed whether Messapic is to be classed with the centum-languages or with the satem-languages. Discussion of this problem has been unduly influenced by comparison with Albanian (a satem-language) and by the commonly made assumption that Albanian can only be the modern representative of an ancient Illyrian dialect. It is at least clear that Illyrian did not represent the IE palatal stops by sibilants, see Hirt, Indogermanen 2.609, and ‘Stellung des Illayrischen’ in Festschrift für Kiepert 181ff. (1894) where Kretschmer's view to the contrary is criticised. The fact that Messapic appears on the available evidence to have nothing corresponding to the labiovelars or labials of the centum-languages (Lat. quinque, Gr. πϵμπτós: Alb. pes∈) that represent the IE velar stops (*penku̯e), would seem to make it a priori likely that the palatals should have been treated as in the satem-languages. But the conclusion is not inevitable. It is probable that Venetic, which was also an ancient Illyrian dialect, neither labialised the velars nor sibilised the palatals; and it has been suggested accordingly that Venetic belongs to a stratum of IE speech earlier than the cleavage into centum-dialects and satem-dialects, see Conway, Annual Brit. Sch. at Athens 8.152 (1901–2).

In no respect perhaps do the Southern and Midland Middle English texts of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries show greater differences than in the loss or retention of the final n of unstressed inflectional syllables. Disregarding all but the gross differences, we can recognise three types of distribution to one or the other of which the various texts tend, in the roughest way and in varying degrees, to conform. These three types of distribution may be illustrated by the Owl and the Nightingale, the Cotton Nero A 14 text of the Ancren Riwle, and the London English of Chaucer.