σπεῦδε βραδέως (Make haste slowly)
—one of Augustus’ sayings, quoted by Suetonius in Augustus 25 Greek has eight parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and particles. In this chapter we focus on verbs.
Some of the grammatical terminology may be intimidating at first, but you should not let it scare you. Many of the terms are traditional and come from Latin; once you understand them, you will find them convenient to use.
After all, they were designed to be helpful, not horrifying!
This section presents an overview of Greek verbs for those who would like to have “the big picture” from the very beginning. You may find it helpful to return to the section and re-read it as you proceed through the textbook. For now it is enough if you merely familiarize yourself with the terminology.
Verbs. Verbs are words that denote actions or states of being. Like English verbs, Greek verbs have the properties of person, number, voice, mood, and tense. Related to tense are the grammatical concepts of aspect and time.
Person. A Greek verb has one of three possible persons: first, second, or third.
The verb is in first person if its subject is the person speaking (“I”
or “we”).
The verb is in second person if its subject is the person being spoken to (“you”).
The verb is in third person if its subject is someone or something other than the person speaking or the person being spoken to (“he,” “she,” “it,” or “they”).
Number. A Greek verb has one of three possible numbers: singular, dual, or plural.
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From Alpha to Omega
The plural denotes that the subject is more than one person, thing, or abstract idea.
Voice. A Greek verb has one of three possible voices: active, passive, or middle. voice, but do not actually appear in the Greek sentence).
Verbs with active or middle voice may be either transitive (i.e., combined with a direct object that identifies who or what is being acted upon; e.g., “I teach the children,” “I have the children taught”) or intransitive (i.e., with no direct object appearing in the sentence; e.g., “I teach,” “I teach [for myself].” A passive sentence is the equivalent of a transitive active sentence; e.g., “The children are taught by me” describes the same situation as “I teach the children.” In both sentences it is the children who experience the teaching, but the idea is expressed in two different ways: first with “children” as the direct object of an active verb, then with “children” as the the subject of a passive verb.
Mood. A Greek verb has one of four possible moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, or optative.
The mood of a verb reflects the speaker’s estimate of how real the action is:
Indicative mood suits statements of fact or discussions of reality and actual occurrences (e.g., a statement—“you are here”; a question—“are you here?”).
Imperative mood is appropriate for commands, i.e., requests to change reality (e.g., “be here!”).
Subjunctive and optative moods are associated with a variety of actions that are all only contemplated or imagined (e.g., a wish—“would that you were here!”; fear or doubt—“you may be here”; a possibility—“you might be here”).
Tense. When it comes to Greek, the notion of “tense” can be problematic, but because the term is traditional and still commonly
Lesson 3 • 15 used, we include it in this textbook. The danger of using the term is
that, on the basis of English, students may simply equate it with time and not realize that Greek makes an important distinction between time and aspect.
The number of possible tenses in Greek depends on the mood of the verb:
A Greek verb in the imperative, subjunctive, or optative mood has one of three possible tenses: present, aorist, or perfect.
A Greek verb in the indicative mood has one of seven possible tenses: present, imperfect, future, aorist, perfect, pluperfect, or future perfect.
There is a logical explanation for the higher number of tenses in the indicative: the imperative, subjunctive, and optative moods use tense to show aspect, while the indicative mood uses tense to show not only aspect but also time.
Aspect. Aspect is the type or quality of the action, as perceived by the speaker. A Greek verb has one of three possible aspects: imperfective, aoristic, or perfective.
Imperfective aspect: the speaker perceives the action as a process continuing or repeated over time.
Aoristic aspect: the speaker perceives the action as a one-time occurrence, neither continuing nor completed.
Perfective aspect: the speaker perceives the action as completed and having an enduring result.
In the imperative, subjunctive, and optative moods each tense matches one of the three aspects:
present tense: imperfective aspect aorist tense: aoristic aspect perfect tense: perfective aspect
Time. A Greek verb in the indicative mood has one of three possible times: present, past, or future. (A verb in the imperative, subjunctive, or optative mood never denotes time; the one exception, the future optative, is discussed in Lesson 40.)
The indicative mood combines time and aspect in the following ways:
present tense: present time, imperfective or aoristic aspect imperfect tense: past time, imperfective aspect
future tense: future time, imperfective or aoristic aspect aorist tense: past time, aoristic aspect
perfect tense: present time, perfective aspect pluperfect tense: past time, perfective aspect future perfect tense: future time, perfective aspect
From Alpha to Omega 16 •
The four tenses of the indicative mood that denote present or future time (present, future, perfect, future perfect) are called primary (or principal) tenses.
The three tenses of the indicative mood that denote past time (imperfect, aorist, pluperfect) are called secondary (or historical) tenses.
Every Greek verb alters or inflects (“bends”) its form to indicate changes in its person, number, voice, mood, and tense. Inflecting a verb means adding suffixes and (sometimes) prefixes to one of its six stems; this process is known as conjugating (“joining together”).
Conjugations. All the verbs that are conjugated in the same way are grouped together and said to belong to the same conjugation. Greek has two main conjugations, a large one to which all the ω-verbs belong, and a small one to which all the μι-verbs belong. This book does not explain the features of μι-verbs systematically until all the forms of ω-verbs have been introduced.
The present tense of the indicative mood denotes an action happening in the present time. It may be an action happening now and only now, or it may be one that goes on all the time, including now. Most often it is viewed as a continuing, repeated, or habitual process; if so, the verb has imperfective aspect. Sometimes it is viewed as a one-time occurrence; if so, the verb has aoristic aspect. Although there is no difference in appearance between a present-tense Greek verb with imperfective aspect and one with aoristic aspect, the context generally makes clear which aspect the author of the sentence had in mind.
The verb παιδεύω (“teach”) will serve as a paradigm (i.e., a model) for the conjugation of ω-verbs in the indicative mood, present tense, active voice.
Each Greek word in the paradigm is followed by two examples of how it might be translated into English.
English has multiple ways to convey the sense of the present indicative, each with a different nuance (e.g., “I teach,” “I do teach,” “I am teaching,” “I con-tinue teaching,” “I keep teaching”). Since Greek uses just one form, broad enough to cover all of these nuances, there is no simple formula for translating the Greek present indicative into English. You must rely on the context to help you choose a suitable translation.
Because the dual is seldom used in Attic Greek (the plural generally takes its place), it has been omitted from the paradigms that appear in the lessons. All of the dual forms, however, are listed for reference in the appendix of the textbook.
Present Active Indicative
Lesson 3 • 17 Plural
1st person παιδεύοµεν (“we teach/are teaching”) -οµεν 2nd person παιδεύετε (“you [pl.] teach/are teaching”) -ετε 3rd person παιδεύουσι(ν) (“they teach/are teaching”) -ουσι(ν)
Present Stem. To form the present tense, you must first find the present stem.
When you look up a Greek verb in a lexicon, you will be confronted with six principal parts. The first of these will be the first-person singular present ac-tive indicaac-tive; if it ends in -ω (e.g., παιδεύω), the verb must belong to the ω-conjugation. Dropping the -ω from the first principal part will give you the present stem.
Endings. Each ending is actually a combination of a thematic vowel (a mark of the present tense — usually ε, but ο is used before μ or ν) and a personal ending:
-ω = ο + lengthening, -εις = ε + σι (σ dropped out) + ς, -ει = ε + σι (σ dropped out), -οµεν = ο + μεν, -ετε = ε + τε, -ουσι = ο + νσι (ν dropped out; ο lengthened to ου). It is good to be aware that these phonetic changes have occurred, but you need only memorize the endings in their final form, keeping in mind that the first letter of each is a thematic vowel.
Movable Nu. The ν in the third-person plural ending is called a movable ν. It is added to a word ending in -σι whenever the following word begins with a vowel or whenever the -σι word falls at the end of a sentence.
Finite Forms. Verb forms that have personal endings are referred to as “finite”
because the action is confined to a specific person—first, second, or third—and to a specific number—singular or plural. Finite forms do not need to be supple-mented with personal pronouns (“I,” “we, “you,” “he,” “she,” “it,” “they”) to clarify who is doing the action; the endings already make that clear. Personal pronouns are added only for emphasis.
Recessive Accent. The accent of most finite forms is recessive, i.e., it wants to move as far to the left in the word as possible. Thus, if the word has only two syllables, the accent will recede to the penult (and be either a circumflex or an acute, according to general principle #2 in §15 of Lesson 2). If the word has three or more syllables, the accent will recede to the antepenult and stay there unless it is forced back to the penult by general principle #1 (e.g., the acute re-cedes to the antepenult in παιδεύομεν, but the long ultima draws it back to the penult in παιδεύω).
Infinitive. An infinitive is a special form that in English always appears as the word “to” followed by a verb (e.g., “to write”). In both English and Greek, it has the ability to function in either of two ways: as a verb, complementing the main verb in the sentence (e.g., “I wish to write”), or as a noun (e.g., “to write is difficult”; in this example the infinitive is the subject of the sentence). Some scholars argue that the infinitive, when it functions as a verb, should be classified as a mood. This textbook prefers to see infinitives as constituting their own category.
The infinitive in Greek is built on a verbal stem, and as its name implies, it is non-finite: its action is not limited to a particular person or number. It has no mood, but it does have tense (which shows only aspect, not time—
exceptions will be discussed in later lessons) and voice.
Here is the infinitive of παιδεύω in the present tense, active voice:
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From Alpha to Omega 18 •
Present Active Infinitive παιδεύειν (“to teach”)
The present active infinitive is formed by adding -ειν (= thematic vowel ε + εν [the two epsilons contract into the diphthong ει]) to the present stem, with recessive accent. Despite its name a present infinitive does not signify an event taking place right now; rather, it implies an on-going or habitual action. Thus its tense is not an indication of present time, but of imperfective aspect. You may prefer to translate the present infinitive in a way that emphasizes the on-going nature of the action (e.g., “to be engaged in teaching” or “to continue teaching”
or “to keep teaching”).
The imperative mood, used for giving commands, has person (but not first person), number, voice, and tense. Tenses in this mood show only aspect, not time. The present imperative has imperfective aspect and denotes an action that the speaker wishes to see happening for a while or repeatedly.
Here are the forms of παιδεύω in the imperative mood, present tense, active voice:
The present active imperative is built on the present stem. Its endings are com-binations of the thematic vowel ε/ο and the personal endings —, -τω, -τε, -ντων.
As you would expect with finite verb forms, the accent is recessive. The second-person plural present imperative is identical in appearance to the second-second-person plural present indicative. The context will help you distinguish the two.
In English there is no difference in form between a second-person singular command, addressed to one person, and a second-person plural command, ad-dressed to more than one person. In Greek, however, the singular command has a different ending from the plural (-ε instead of -ετε).
The third-person imperative is an order addressed to one or more persons who are neither the one(s) speaking nor the one(s) being spoken to. Because English has no exact equivalent for this sort of command, a construction with “let” is normal-ly used. Notice that this translation can be misleading: “let” may seem to mean
“allow,” and the word that is the subject of the Greek verb confusingly appears in the objective case in English; e.g., the “they” subject of παιδευόντων turns into
“them” in the translation “let them teach.” Translating “may they teach” would solve that problem but at the same time introduce another by transforming the command into a wish. There is no perfect solution.
Since the present imperative has imperfective aspect, you may prefer a transla-tion that emphasizes the on-going nature of the actransla-tion (e.g., “continue teach-ing!” for παίδευε or “let them keep teachteach-ing!” for παιδευόντων).
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Lesson 3 • 19 Negative Adverbs. In the indicative mood the normal negative adverb is οὐ; the usual place to put οὐ is right before the verb (e.g., οὐ παιδεύεις,
“you are not teaching” or “you do not teach”).
A prohibition or negative command is signaled by μή (“not”); the usual place to put μή is right before the imperative form of the verb (e.g., μὴ παίδευε, “don’t teach!”).
Vocabulary
Words are grouped according to their part of speech and presented in this order:
verbs, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, par-ticles. Within each category the order is alphabetical. English derivatives are printed in italics and placed in square brackets at the end of each entry.
If a verb can be used with an infinitive, the vocabulary item will begin with (+
infinitive), and the meanings that are appropriate when the infinitive is used will have the word to following them in parentheses. The parentheses indicate that the verb may be used either with an infinitive or without one.
If a word in the vocabulary list has an acute accent on its ultima, do not assume that that accent can never change. Whenever the word is used in a sentence and another word follows it with no intervening punctuation, the accent will switch to a grave (as explained in §14 of Lesson 2). It is for simplicity’s sake that the word is printed with an acute accent whenever it is quoted out of context.
γράφω write, draw [cf. autograph]
ἐθέλω (+ infinitive) be willing (to), wish (to) θω offer sacrifice, sacrifice, slay
κλέπτω steal [cf. kleptomania]
παιδεύω teach, educate [cf. propaedeutic]
σπεύδω (+ infinitive) hasten (to), strive (to), be eager (to) φυλάττω stand guard, guard, protect, preserve [cf. prophylactic]
µή (negative adverb used with imperative mood) not οὐ (οὐκ, οὐχ) (negative adverb used with indicative mood) not
οὐ is a proclitic, a type of word that “leans ahead” to the word following it and has no accent of its own; there are ten such words in Greek. οὐ is unique in that it does receive an accent (acute) if it comes at the end of a clause (οὔ). Before a word with smooth breathing, οὐ becomes οὐκ;
before a word with rough breathing, οὐ becomes οὐχ. οὐκ and οὐχ are exceptions to the rule that a Greek word can end only in a vowel, ν, ρ, ς, ξ, or ψ.
καί (conjunction) and; (adverb) also, even καὶ...καί (correlative conjunctions) both…and
As a conjunction, καί (“and”) connects parallel words (e.g., two finite verbs, two infinitives, two nouns). If the sentence seems to have a super-fluous καί in it, καί is either an adverb, stressing the word that immedi-ately follows it, or a correlative conjunction paired with another καί. In a vocabulary list it is conventional to show the first correlative with its acute accent changed to grave, since another word would most likely follow it with no intervening punctuation.
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From Alpha to Omega 20 •
Exercises
Greek-to-English Sentences
1. παιδεύεις καὶ οὐ κλέπτεις.
2. μὴ γράφε· σπεῦδε φυλάττειν.
3. καὶ θῡόντων καὶ παιδευόντων.
4. ἐθέλετε κλέπτειν; οὐκ ἐθέλουσιν.
5. σπεύδει παιδεύειν· μὴ κλεπτέτω.
6. ἐθέλομεν καὶ θειν καὶ γράφειν.
7. μὴ κλέπτε· φυλάττει.
8. σπεύδουσι καὶ γράφειν; γραφόντων.
9. παιδεύω· θῡέτω.
10. φυλάττομεν· μὴ σπεύδετε κλέπτειν.
English-to-Greek Sentences
1. Offer sacrifice (pl.) and do not steal!
2. Also hasten (sg.) to teach!
3. Is he willing to stand guard? Let him not continue drawing!
4. She is not writing; she is both educating and sacrificing.
5. Let them steal! We do not wish to guard.
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