Learn Ancient Greek With Me Part III - My Notes on Ch. 3 “Ω-Verbs - Present Active Indicative, Infinitive, and Imperative” by Anne Groton
Stephen Alexander Beach
Let’s talk about verbs …
Verbs are a key part of grammatical speech that express action and states of being. Verbs are conjugated to express 1) Person 2) Number 3) Voice 4) Mood and 5) Tense.
Person - There are three ways in which verbs can be expressed. First person expresses that I or We are doing something, the subject or person speaking does the action. Second person expresses that the person being spoken to did the action, you or y’all. And third person expresses that someone not present did the action, he/she/it. (WHO IS DOING THE ACTION)
Number - Greek has three ways of expressing the number of persons doing the action. There is singular, dual, and plural. Singular being one person as the subject, dual as a pair of people doing the action, and plural as many people doing the action. Groton says that the dual number verbs are not used much in Attic Greek, so it will be left out of this text. (HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE DOING THE ACTION)
Voice - Verbs can be expressed in three voices in Greek, active, passive, and middle. An active voice is when the subject is doing the action, passive voice when something is done to the subject, and middle when the subject does something for themselves.
- Transitive - Transitive verbs are those which identify the direct object on which they act.
-Intransitive - Verbs that do not identify what they are acting upon.
The active and middle voices can be either transitive or intransitive, while the passive voice only transitive. This is because the passive sentence is the same as an active transitive sentence, but one where the subject is acted on by the passive verb. For example, I teach the children versus the children are taught by me.
(IF THE ACTION IS DONE BY THE SUBJECT OR TO THE SUBJECT, OR IF THE SUBJECT DOES SOMETHING FOR ITSELF)
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Mood - There are four moods which a verb can take. “The mood reflects the speaker’s estimate of how real the action is.”
Indicative - Deals with reality as such, facts and actual occurrences.
Imperative - Is the way of someone commanding something to be done.
Subjective - Deals with what does not exist, but could happen. They are thought about and hoped for or feared or imagined as a possibility.
Optative - Same as subjective.
Tense - Tense expresses the (1) time of the action and (2) the aspect, or what type of process of continuation or completion the speaker perceives it to be.
Types of Aspects (Perception of the speaker)
- Imperfect - “The speaker may view the action as a process continuing or repeated over time [unfinished aspect]”
- Aoristic - “… as a simple occurrence [undefined aspect]”
- Perfective - “ … as a completed action with an enduring result [finished aspect]”
The Indicative mood can have seven tenses, all of which have a combination of time (fact) and aspect (perception).
- Present - Present time —— imperfective or Aoristic aspect - Ex. I am running. - I run.
- Imperfect - Past time —— imperfective aspect - Ex. I was running. - I used to run.
- Future - Future time —— imperfective or Aoristic aspect - Ex. I will be running. - I will run.
- Aorist - Past time ——- Aoristic aspect - Ex. I ran.
- Perfect - Present time ——- perfective aspect - Ex. I have run.
- Pluperfect - Past time ——- perfective aspect - Ex. I had run.
- Future Perfect - Future time —— perfective aspect Ex. - I will have run.
The other moods - Imperative, Subjective, and Optative - can only have three moods. This is because it is not dealing with actual events, but wishes or commands, and therefore only expresses the ASPECT of the speaker.
- Present
- Aorist
- Perfect
Conjugating Verbs
To accommodate all of these different features of expressing action, verbs are going to be altered in the back or front of a stem to indicate what type of verb it is. This is conjugating or joining together. There are two main groups of verbs which conjugate similarly - The ω-verbs and μι-verbs.
Present Active Indicative for ω-verbs.
-ω
-εις
-ει
-ομεν
-ετε
-ουσι(ν)
For example, the verb “to teach”
-παιδεύω
-παιδεύεις
-παιδεύει
-παιδευομεν
-παιδεύετε
-παιδεύουσι(ν)
When looking at a word in the dictionary you will be given the “six principle parts” of the word. The first principle part is the “first-person singular present active indicative”. If it’s an omega verb then drop the omega and you have the present stem.
The letter before that is the “thematic vowel” which will usually be ε but “ο is used before μ or ν”.
The movable ν for the third person plural is used when “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.” 
Present Active Infinitive
These conjugated verbs are called finite because they have a definite person and number. A verb that does not is called an infinitive.
Ex. -παιδεύειν - to be teaching (infinitive have an imperfective aspect and therefore suggest continuing action)
Present Active Imperative
This is the conjugation of a command wherein the person speaking wants to see the action taken repeatedly or continually. Commands don’t have a first person, since the subject is commanding someone else.
-ε
-ετω
-ετε
-οντων
Example:
-παιδεύει
-παιδευετω
-παιδεύετε
-παιδευοντων
Negations
Add before the verb to indicate a negative. Don’t or not doing something.
Indicative verbs -ού (“Before a word with smooth breathing, ού becomes ούκ; before a word with rough breathing, ού becomes ούχ.”)
Imperative verbs -μή
Vocabulary
-γράφω - write, draw [Think autograph or self writing. Think a graph where one might draw something. Think graphite pencil which one writes with]
-εθέλω - be willing (to), wish (to) [Think
-θύω - offer sacrifice, sacrifice, slay [Think
-κλέπτω - steal [Think kleptomaniac obviously]
-παιδεύω -teach, educate
-σπεύδω - hasten (to), strive (to), be eager (to) [Think speed]
-φυλάττω - stand guard, guard, protect, preserve
-καί -and or as an adverb -also, even
-καί … καί - both … and
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