II. Present Root Stem

1. A Pure Root Stem, with or without theme vowel, can be used as a Present Stem, opposed to those of the Imperfect, Perfect and possibly Future. The Imperfect Stem can also be Root, and it is distinguished with vowel opposition, thematism/athematism or with secondary phonetic differentiations.

There are Present Root Stems Athematic, Semithematic and Thematic. The Athematics are, in Europaio, only the remains of a probably older system, and so are the Semithematics.

2. In Monosyllabic Roots with consonant or sonant ending, the inflection is usually in the Active voice Singular with root vowel e and root accent; in plural, active and middle voices, root vowel Ø and accent on the ending. The most obvious example is that of es, be, which has a singular in es- and plural in s-. There are also some other monosyllabic verbs, as chen, knok, and od, eat. Other verbs, as ei, go, also follow this inflection type. The following table depicts the present paradigm of these verbs:

ACTIVE

3. There is also another rare verbal type, root athematic with full or long root vowel and fixed root accent (it is usually called Proterodynamic). It appears frequently in the Middle Voice.

4. Monosyllabic Roots with long vowel are inflected in singular with long vowel, and in plural and middle voice with -a. They are rare in Present, usually reserved for the Imperfect. Some examples are dhe (also with o), set, put; do/damen, as in dom, dos, dot, daent.

5. Some Disyllabic Roots, those which preserve an athematic inflection, have the Present in full/Ø vowel. Some forms are Ø/full vowel, generally reserved for the Imperfect.

6. In the Semithematic Root Stem, the third person plural has often an ending preceded by e/o. That happens also in the first person singular, which often has -o or -o-m(i); and in the first person plural, which can be -o-mos, -o-mo.

NOTE. In an inflection like that of the verb es, esmi/smes, there can be a semithematic alternative; as in Latin, where there is s-omi, not esmi, s-omes, not sme, and s-onti, not s-enti. This inflection, although not limited to Latin, has had little success in the Europaio system. There are, however, many examples of semithematic inflection in non-root stems, what could mean that the semithematic existed in PIE, or, on the contrary, that old athematic forms were remade.

7. The thematic Root Stems have generally an -e/o added to the root before the endings. So, if in athematic stems this can be found in the third person plural, and in semithematics in the first person singular and plural, it appears always in thematics.

They have two general forms, with differences in the vowel timbre:

a. With root vowel e and root accent; as in bhereti, he carries (cf. bear)

b. With root vowel Ø and accent on the theme vowel, as in bhret, I bore, I was bearing

The b. form is preferred in the Imperfect and the a. in the Present, although both could appear in both of them. In fact, when both appear in the Present, the a-type is usually a durative, meaning an action not finished; while the b-type verbs are terminatives or punctuals, meaning the conclusion of the action. This semantic value is not general, though, and more often found in the southern dialects.

NOTE. The more modern inflection is, thus (in a singular/plural scheme), that of full/full vocalism for Present, Ø/Ø for Imperfect. The (mainly) root athematic - and semithematic - inflection in full/Ø is therefore older. The thematic inflection probably overshadowed the athematic and semithematic ones in IE III and there are many examples of coexisting forms, some of this are opposed to the older in meaning. Some scholars postulate the older form as the correct one - again, we don't look for The original (PIE or IE II) inflection, but for the real, rich system of the IE III.