Oswald Szemerényi

“Hermann goes even further: complete forms (e.g. *deiwos) cannot be reconstructed at all, only single sounds, and even these are meant as approximations only, not as phonetically completely correct reconstructions.”

“O. Szemerényi admits that reconstructions are used to facilitate comparisons, using one word instead of many IE variants, and cites Hermann’s statement that “complete forms (e.g. *deiwos [=S deva-s]) cannot be reconstructed at all, only single sounds, and even these are meant as approximation only”.”