Koine Greek/Introduction to Finite Indicative Verbs

The Voices Verbs have three voices: active, middle, and passive. In the active voice, the subject acts. In the middle voice, the subject is acted upon by itself for its own benefit. In the passive voice, the subject is acted upon by another agent. Active: He bakes the bread. Middle: The bread bakes. Passive: The bread is baked. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"): the present, future, and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist, present perfect, pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The Indicative Mood Verbs have four moods (indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and optative). In linguistics, mood is a feature of verbs, used for signaling modality. In other words, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying (for example, a statement of fact, of desire, of command, etc.). The term is also used more broadly to describe the syntactic expression of modality – that is, the use of verb phrases that do not involve inflection of the verb itself. Present Indicative tense The athematic suffixes are: ActiveMediopassiveSingular1st Person -μι -μαι2nd Person -ς -σαι3rd Person -σι(ν) -ταιPlural1st Person -μεν -μεθα2nd Person -τε -σθε3rd Person -ασι(ν) -νταιInfinitive -ναι -σθαι The thematic suffixes are: ActiveMiddle-PassiveSingular1st Person -ω -ομαι2nd Person -εις -ει3rd Person -ει -εταιPlural1st Person -ομεν -ομεθα2nd Person -ετε -εσθε3rd Person -ουσι(ν) -ονταιInfinitive -ειν -εσθαι Λύω ("to release, free"), one of the simplest verbs in Ancient Greek, is often used in charts for all tenses. GreekPronunciationλύωlew-ohλύειςlew-eysλύειlew-eyλύομενlew-omenλύετεlew-eteλύουσι(ν)lew-oosee(n) The bolded syllables indicate that, when speaking, the pitch is raised. Notice that the 3rd plural adds a 'ν'; this is known as a "moveable-nu, and it is used when the verb is followed by a word that begins with a vowel or when it is the last word of a sentence. Translation In English, we have a number of ways to express actions in the present. E.g., I run, I am running, I do run. Greek does not make that distinction, so a perfectly acceptable translation for λύω can be either "I release" or "I am releasing." Another simple verb is γράφω ("to write"): γράφω γράφεις γράφει γράφομεν γράφετε γράφουσι(ν)