Ancient Greek verbs


Ancient Greek verbs have four moods, three voices, as well as three persons and three numbers.
The distinction of the "tenses" in moods other than the indicative is predominantly one of aspect rather than time.
The different persons of a Greek verb are shown by changing the verb-endings; for example λύω "I free", λύεις "you free", λύει "he or she frees", etc. There are three persons in the singular, and three in the plural. In addition there are endings for the 2nd and 3rd persons dual, but these are only very rarely used.
A distinction is traditionally made between the so-called athematic verbs, with endings affixed directly to the root, and the thematic class of verbs which present a "thematic" vowel or before the ending. The endings are classified into primary and secondary.
To make the past tenses of the indicative mood, the vowel ε-, called an "augment", is prefixed to the verb stem, e.g. aorist ἔ-λυσα "I freed", imperfect ἔ-λυον "I was freeing". This augment is found only in the indicative, not in the other moods or in the infinitive or participle. To make the perfect tense the first consonant is "reduplicated", that is, repeated with the vowel e "I have freed", γέγραφα "I have written"), or in some cases an augment is used in lieu of reduplication. Unlike the augment of past tenses, this reduplication or augment is retained in all the moods of the perfect tense as well as in the perfect infinitive and participle.
The Ancient Greek verbal system preserves nearly all the complexities of Proto-Indo-European. Ancient Greek also preserves the PIE middle voice and adds a passive voice, with separate forms only in the future and aorist.

Thematic and athematic verbs

Ancient Greek verbs can be divided into two groups, the thematic, and the athematic "we are". Thematic verbs are much more numerous.

Thematic verbs

Active verbs

Thematic verbs, in the 1st person singular of the present tense active, end in -ω. These are very numerous, for example, λέγω "I say", γράφω "I write", πέμπω "I send", etc. The endings of these tend to be regular:
The forms in brackets are the dual number, used for two people, and which exists only in the 2nd and 3rd person; it is rather rare, but still used sometimes by authors such as Aristophanes and Plato:
The present infinitive active of thematic verbs is -ειν, e.g. λέγειν "to say".

Middle verbs

Thematic verbs are also found in the middle voice, with the 1st person singular ending -ομαι e.g. ἀποκρῑ́νομαι "I answer", γίγνομαι "I become". The endings of the present tense go as follows:
The middle present infinitive is -εσθαι, e.g. ἀποκρῑ́νεσθαι "to answer".
Many middle-voice verbs, such as ἀποκρῑ́νομαι "I answer", are deponent, that is to say, they have no corresponding active form. Other middle verbs, such as παύομαι "I cease ", have a corresponding active form: παύω "I stop ".

Passive verbs

Passive verbs, in the present, imperfect, and perfect tenses, have exactly the same endings as middle verbs. Examples are διώκομαι "I am pursued" and κελεύομαι "I am ordered ".
In the aorist tense, however, they differ from middle verbs in that they use the endings -σθην, -θην, or -ην, for example ἐδιώχθην "I was pursued", ἐκελεύσθην "I was ordered", ἐβλάβην "I was harmed"; whereas middle verbs tend to have an aorist ending in -σάμην, -άμην, or -όμην, for example ἐπαυσάμην "I stopped", ἀπεκρινάμην "I answered", ἐγενόμην "I became".

Contracted verbs

A special class of thematic verbs are the contracted verbs. In the dictionary these are entered as ending -άω, -έω or -όω, for example ὁράω "I see", ποιέω "I do", δηλόω "I show"; but in most cases when they are found in a text the vowel α, ε, ο contracts with the ending to make a single vowel. Thus the present tense of ὁράω "I see" goes as follows:
While the present tense of ποιέω "I do" is as follows:
And the present tense of δηλόω "I show" is as follows:
The present infinitive active of the three types of contracted verbs is ὁρᾶν "to see", ποιεῖν, "to do", δηλοῦν "to show".
Contracted verbs are also found in the middle and passive voices, e.g. ἀφικνέομαι "I arrive" and τιμάομαι "I am honoured".

Athematic verbs

Active

Athematic verbs have -μι in the 1st person singular of the present tense, e.g. εἰμί "I am", φημί "I say", δίδωμι "I give", ἵστημι "I stand ". In the middle voice they end in -μαι, e.g. δύναμαι "I am able". The present tense of εἶμι "I go" is generally used with future meaning in the classical period.
These verbs present many irregularities in conjugation. For example, the present tense of εἰμί "I am" goes as follows:
The present tense of the verb εἶμι "I go" is as follows:
Whereas the present tense of δίδωμι "I give" goes as follows:
The dual of this verb, theoretically δίδοτον, is not found.
The active infinitive of athematic verbs ends in -ναι, e.g. εἶναι "to be", ἰέναι "to go", διδόναι "to give".

Middle

Athematic verbs are also found in the middle voice, e.g. ἵσταμαι "I stand" or δύναμαι "I am able", with endings as follows:
The infinitive is -σθαι.

The verb ()

The verb οἶδα "I know", is irregular. Its endings are those of an athematic perfect tense, and go as follows:
The infinitive of οἶδα is εἰδέναι "to know".

Tenses

The tense system

The Ancient Greek verbal system has seven tense-aspect forms, traditionally called "tenses". The temporal distinctions only appear in the indicative mood as shown on the table below:
In the subjunctive and imperative moods, however, only three tenses are used, and they distinguish aspect only, not time:
perfective
aspect		imperfective
aspect		perfect
aspect
aoristpresentperfect

The optative mood likewise uses these three tenses, but there is also a future optative, used mainly to report indirectly what would be a future indicative in direct speech.
Ancient Greek has no perfect progressive or past perfect progressive. Thus, the meaning "he has been doing" is typically expressed with the present tense, and "he had been doing " is expressed with the imperfect tense:

Formation of the tenses

For further information on the endings, see.

Principal parts of verbs

Dictionaries of Ancient Greek usually give six principal parts for any verb. For example, for the verb παιδεύω "I teach, train" the six parts are as follows:
The principal parts are these:
Other tenses can be formed on the basis of these. For example, the imperfect tense ἐπαίδευον "I was teaching" is based on the present stem with the addition of the prefix ἔ- , and the pluperfect ἐπεπαιδεύκη "I had taught" is formed from the perfect stem:
Not all verbs have a future tense made with -σ-. Some, particularly those whose stem ends in λ, μ, ν, ρ such as ἀγγέλλω "I announce" and μένω "I remain", have a contracted future, with endings like the verb ποιέω. These same verbs also usually have an aorist without sigma:
Some common verbs, instead of the ordinary aorist tense ending in -σα, have an aorist ending in -ον etc. exactly like the imperfect; this is known as a "strong" aorist or "2nd" aorist. However, it differs from the imperfect in that the stem of the verb is different. Thus the aorist of φεύγω "I flee" is ἔφυγον "I fled", with stem φυγ-, contrasting with the imperfect ἔφευγον, with stem φευγ-.
Other strong aorists are ἦλθον "I came", ἔλαβον "I took", εἶπον "I said", ἔφαγον "I ate"; and in the middle voice ἐγενόμην "I became" and ἀφικόμην "I arrived".

Root aorist

Many verbs have an aorist without the sigma markers and characteristic endings of the regular aorist. Typically these verbs have present progressive markers added to the stem in the present system, so that the basic stem is used in the aorist and in the other aspects. One example is the verb βαίνω, "I go", which becomes ἔβην.

Less regular principal parts

However, by no means all Ancient Greek verbs are as regular in their principal parts as παιδεύω. For example, the verb λαμβάνω "I take" has the following parts:
As can be seen, the stems used etc. vary from tense to tense. They all come from the same root, but the stem used in the present tense, λαμβάνω, has an extra μ and αν ; in the other tenses the vowel in the root varies between α and η ; and the final consonant, β, changes by assimilation to ψ or μ, or by aspiration to φ.
The verb "I lead" goes:
Both of the above verbs have a "strong aorist" or "2nd aorist" ending in -ον rather than the usual -σα, and the perfect tense has an aspirated consonant φ, χ before the ending instead of κ.
The tenses of δίδωμι "I give" are as follows:
The aorist of this verb is irregular, since it ends in κα. However, this κ is found only in the singular, and disappears in the plural, e.g. 3rd ἔδοσαν "they gave". The verbs τίθημι "I put" and ἵημι "I send" are similar, with aorists ἔθηκα 3rd ἔθεσαν and ἧκα 3rd εἷσαν respectively.
However, ἵστημι "I stand " does not follow this pattern and has a different aorist:
In some verbs the principal parts are even more irregular than this; like the English verbs "am/is, was, been" and "go, went, gone", they use different stems for the different tenses. For example, the verb φέρω "I bring, I bear" has the following principal parts using stems derived from three originally different verbs:
ὁράω "I see" is another verb made from stems from three different roots, namely ὁρά, ὀπ and ἰδ :
ἔρχομαι "I come" or "I go" is also irregular. This verb has only four principal parts, since there is no passive:
This verb is made more complex by the fact that in Attic Greek, the present tense, imperfect tense, and future are usually replaced by parts of the irregular verb εἶμι "I go": The indicative of εἶμι is generally used with future significance in the classical period but the other parts such as the infinitive ἰέναι "to go" are not future in meaning.

The past-tense augment

The three past tenses, in the classical period, are made by adding a prefix ἐ-, called an "augment", on the beginning of the verb. Thus from γράφω "I write" are made:
This past-tense augment is found only in the indicative mood, not in the subjunctive, infinitive, participle, or other parts of the verb.
When a verb starts with a vowel, the augment usually merges with the vowel to make a long vowel. Thus + > /ē/, + > /ē/, + > /ī/, + > /ō/ and so on:
When a verb starts with a prepositional prefix, the augment usually goes after the prefix :
In Homer, and occasionally in Herodotus, the augment is sometimes omitted.

Perfect tenses

The perfect tense is formed by repeating the first consonant of the stem with the vowel ε. This is known as "reduplication":
When the first consonant of the verb is aspirated , the reduplication is made with the equivalent unaspirated consonant :
When the verb starts with a vowel, ζ or with a combination of consonants such as γν or στρ, instead of reduplication an augment is used:
More complex kinds of reduplication are found in:
Unlike the past-tense augment, this reduplication or perfect-tense augment is found in every part of the perfect tense, including the infinitive and participles.

Meanings of the tenses

The meanings of the tenses are as follows:

The present tense

The present tense can be imperfective or perfective, and be translated "I do ", "I do ", "I am doing ":
The present tense is frequently used in historical narrative, especially to describe exciting moments:

Imperfect tense

The imperfect tense "for prolonging", from παρατείνω "prolong") is used in the indicative mood only. It often indicates a continuing situation in the past, rather than an event. It can be translated as "was doing", "used to do", "would do", etc., referring to either a progressive, habitual, or continual situation:
Often "began doing" is a possible translation:
As noted above, the imperfect can also mean "had been doing", referring to a situation which existed earlier than the time of the main verb:
However, although the imperfect usually describes a situation, it is often used in narrative where English would use a simple past, especially with verbs meaning "send", "go", "say", and "order":
The distinction between imperfect and aorist in the above examples can be seen not so much in terms of perfectivity vs. imperfectivity, as in terms of telicity vs. atelicity. The aorist ἐδειπνήσαμεν would mean "we finished dinner" and would be a telic verb, implying that the action was carried through to its end, whereas the imperfect ἐδειπνοῦμεν would mean "we began eating dinner" and would be atelic, implying that the action was started but not necessarily completed. Similarly the aorist ἔπεισα means "I successfully persuaded", whereas the imperfect ἔπειθον means "I urged" or "I attempted to persuade":
Another meaning of the imperfect indicative is to refer to unreal situations in present or past time. To give the meaning "would", the particle ἄν is added:

Future tense

The future tense describes an event or a state of affairs that will happen in the future. For example, it can be something promised or predicted:
It can also be used after ὅπως for strong commands and prohibitions:

Aorist tense

The aorist tense describes a finished action in the past.
Often in narrative it is found mixed with present and imperfect tenses:
Often an aorist is equivalent to an English pluperfect tense, for example after ἐπεί "when" or in relative clauses in sentences such as the following:
Another meaning of the aorist indicative is to refer to unreal events in past time. To give the meaning "would", the particle ἄν is added:

Perfect tense

The perfect tense, much as the English perfect tense, often describes a recent event of which the present result is important:
It can also, like the English perfect, be used experientially, of something that has often or always happened in the past:
In some verbs the perfect tense can be translated by a present tense in English, e.g. μέμνημαι "I remember", ἕστηκα "I am standing"/"I stand", κέκτημαι "I possess", οἶδα "I know":

Pluperfect tense

The pluperfect tense, like the Imperfect, is used only in the indicative mood. It refers to a situation that existed due to events that had taken place at an earlier time:
However, the pluperfect is much less frequently used in Greek than in English, since after conjunctions such as ἐπεί "when", usually the aorist is used:

Future perfect tense

The future perfect tense is rarely used. In the active voice only two verbs "I will be dead" and ἕστηξα "I will be standing") have a separate form for the future perfect tense, though a compound tense can be made with a perfect participle, e.g ἐγνωκὼς ἔσται "he is going to have realised"; but even this is extremely rare. It is more common in the passive. It describes a future state that will result from a finished action:

Moods

There are four moods :

Indicative

.
The indicative is the form of the verb used for ordinary statements of fact:
To make the negative of the indicative, οὐ or, before a vowel, οὐκ is added before the verb:
The imperfect and aorist indicative can also sometimes refer to unreal situations in present or past time.

Subjunctive

.
The subjunctive generally has the letters ω or η in the ending.
It is often used when the meaning is may, for example in purpose clauses, especially those referring to present or future time:
The above example uses the present subjunctive, but the aorist subjunctive is equally correct, with a slightly different shade of meaning:
Another very common use of the subjunctive is in indefinite subordinate clauses following a conjunction such as ἐᾱ́ν "if ", ὅταν "whenever", ὃς ἄν "whoever", ἕως ἄν "until such time as" etc., referring to present or future time. When used with the subjunctive, such conjunctions are always joined with the particle ἄν :
The subjunctive can also be used of something that it is suggested "should" happen, for example in exhortations, deliberative questions, and negative commands such as the following:
The negative of the subjunctive, as in the above example, is μὴ.

Optative

.
The optative mood can generally be recognised because it has the letters οι, αι or ει in the ending.
One use of the optative mood is in conditional sentences referring to a hypothetical situation in the future. The particle ἄν is added in the main clause to give the meaning "would":
However, the optative mood is not used in sentences referring to a hypothetical situation in the present or past; in such sentences the optative is replaced by the imperfect, aorist, or pluperfect indicative, with ἄν in the main clause.
The optative mood is also used in reported speech in past time:
Just as the subjunctive is used after a conjunction meaning "whenever", "until such time as" etc. referring to present or future time, so the optative can be used in similar clauses referring to repeated events in past time. However, in this case the particle ἄν is not added to the conjunction:
The optative can also be used for wishes:
The optative can also be used in purpose clauses in past time, and after verbs of fearing in past time:
However, some authors, such as Herodotus and Thucydides, prefer to use the subjunctive in such clauses.

Imperative

.
The present imperative is used for general commands:
The aorist imperative is used when the speaker wishes something done at once:
It is also possible in Greek to have a 3rd person imperative, as in the following examples:
The imperative mood can also be used in the perfect tense, as the following example shows:

Non-finite verb forms

Infinitives

.

Forms of the infinitive (active)

The infinitive is found in all three voices, and in the present, aorist, future, and perfect tenses. The four infinitives of the active voice of the verb λύω "I free" are as follows:
Many commonly used verbs, instead of an aorist infinitive in -σαι, have one ending in -εῖν instead. This is called the "strong aorist" or "2nd aorist":
Root aorists take a different infinitive:
Contracting verbs have a present infinitive ending in -ᾶν, -εῖν or -οῦν :
Verbs ending in -μι, such as δίδωμι "I give", have present and aorist infinitives which end in -ναι :
The irregular verb οἶδα "I know" also has an infinitive ending in -ναι :
The infinitive is often used after verbs with meanings such as "he wanted", "he ordered", "he tried", "it is necessary", "he is able" etc. much as in English:
It can also be used for indirect speech after certain verbs such as φημί "I say" or νομίζω "I think". The subject of the infinitive, if it is different from the subject of the main verb, is put in the accusative case. When the statement is negative, the word οὐ "not" goes in front of φημί.
In Greek an infinitive is also often used with the neuter definite article in various constructions. In this case it is similar in meaning to the English verbal noun in "-ing":

Participles

Participles were given the name μετοχή metokhḗ "sharing" by Greek grammarians, because they share the characteristics of both adjectives and verbs. Like adjectives, they have gender, case, and number and agree with the nouns that they modify, and, like verbs, they have tense and voice.

Forms of the participle

Participles exist for all three voices in the present, aorist, future, and perfect tenses. Typical endings for the , , and are as follows:
Active:
Middle and Passive:
Participles are very frequently used in Greek. For example, in the following sentence from Plato's Phaedo there are six participles:
This example is analysed in the paragraphs below.

Different tenses of the participle

An aorist participle, such as ἐξελθών "after going out", usually refers to an action which preceded the time of the main verb:
A present participle, such as ἄγων "leading", is used to refer to an action which is taking place simultaneously with the main verb:
A perfect participle, such as τετριμμένον "pounded", generally refers to the state that something is in as a result of an earlier action, e.g. "fallen", "dead", "broken" etc., rather than to the action itself:
A future participle refers to an action which is to take place after the time of the main verb, and is often used to indicate purpose:

Agreement

Because it is an adjective as well as a verb, a participle has to agree in case, gender, and number with the noun it refers to. Thus in the first example above:
A participle frequently describes the circumstances in which another action took place. Often it is translated with "-ing", e.g. ἄγων "leading" in the example above.
In some sentences it can be translated with a clause beginning "when" or "since":
Another frequent use is in a construction known as the "genitive absolute", when the participle and its subject are placed in the genitive case. This construction is used when the participle refers to someone or something who is not the subject, object, or indirect object of the main verb:
But if the verb is an impersonal one, it is put in the accusative, e.g. ἔξον "it being possible".

Participle with the article

Sometimes a participle is used with the article, in which case it can often be translated with "who":

Supplementary participle

As well as being used in sentences such as the above, the participle can be used following verbs with meanings such as "I know", "I notice", "I happen ", "I hear " and so on. This use is known as the "supplementary" participle.

Voices

The Ancient Greek grammar has three voices. The middle and the passive voice are the same except in the future and aorists.

Active voice

An active voice verb is any verb which has the endings of the -ω or -μι verbs described above. It can be intransitive, transitive or reflexive :

Middle voice

In addition to the active endings described above, many verbs also have a set of endings in -ομαι or -μαι which can be either passive or non-passive in meaning. When the meaning of such a verb is not passive, it is known as a "middle voice" verb.
Middle voice verbs are usually intransitive, but can also be transitive. Often the middle endings make a transitive verb intransitive:
Sometimes there is a reflexive meaning or an idea of doing something for one's own benefit:
Sometimes there can be a reciprocal meaning:
Quite a number of verbs which are active in the present tense become middle in the future tense, e.g.:
A number of common verbs ending in -ομαι or -μαι have no active-voice counterpart. These are known as "deponent" verbs.
Deponent middle verbs include verbs such as the following:
Some middle deponent verbs have a weak aorist tense formed with -σα-, e.g. ἐδεξάμην, but frequently they have a strong aorist middle such as ἀφικόμην "I arrived" or ἐγενόμην "I became". "I come" is irregular in that it uses a strong aorist active ἦλθον "I came" as its aorist tense.)
All the above, since they have an aorist in the middle voice, are known as middle deponents. There are also deponent passive verbs with aorists in -θη-, such as the following:
Some examples of deponent verbs in use are the following:

Passive voice

Occasionally a verb ending in -ομαι has a clear passive sense. If so, it is said to be in the passive voice:
Usually when used passively, -ομαι verbs have an aorist tense containing -θη- in the ending:
Occasionally, an aorist passive can have an ending with -η-. This is known as the 2nd aorist or strong aorist passive, and uses a different verb-stem from the present. In the example below, the stem is φθαρ- instead of the present stem φθειρ-:
Deponent middle verbs can also be made passive in some tenses. Thus αἱρέομαι "I choose" has an aorist passive ᾑρέθην "I was chosen":
The endings with -θη- and -η- were originally intransitive actives rather than passives and sometimes have an intransitive meaning even in Classical Greek. For example, ἐσώθην often means "I got back safely" rather than "I was saved":