I think I made a mistake in my response to Mark's query and Urban's answer
about "Narten presents". The only convincing Hittite examples of "strong"
*o (Hitt. a) vs. "weak" *e I
could find are of hi-presents(no
mi-presents):
sak-/sek- 'know'
sak-hi
sek-weni
sak-ti
sek-teni
sakk-i
sekk-antsi
As far as I remember, Jasanoff argues that o-grade
presents like *mol(x)- 'grind', *konk- 'be
suspended', etc., originally constituted the "*h2e-series" of presents with
*o/*e or *o/zero ablaut (and
that they are related to the perfect paradigm). I referred to this
article:
Jasanoff, Jay H. 1992. "Reconstructing morphology: the role of
o-grade in Hittite and Tocharian verb inflection". In: Edgar C. Polomé
and Werner Winter (eds.). Reconstructing Languages and Cultures. Berlin/New
York: Mouton de Gruyter. 129-156.
What is confusing about Hittite is that it also has
"strong" e corresponding to "weak" a!
This is because originally unstressed PIE *e could be reduced
to a schwa-like vowel (*@) which became Hittite
a.
ed-mi
ad-antsi 'eat' (1sg/3pl/part.)
es-mi
as-antsi 'be'
ses-mi sas-antsi 'sleep'
ep-mi
app-antsi 'seize'
eku-mi akuw-antsi 'drink'
Piotr