Verbs Overview
Table of contents
Verbs - Definition
Ancient Greek, like English, has several parts of speech into which words can be classified. The first part of speech under consideration is the verb, defined here as a word that indicates action or a state of being. Take a look at the following examples in English:
- The defendant showed the evidence.
- You had my attention.
- The story was very long.
- The victims were wronged.
In each of these sentences, the verb is bolded and serves as the anchor of the entire sentence, communicating the idea that the sentence is trying to convey. Note that the verb can indicate action (“showed”, “had”, “were wronged”) or a static state (“was”). We’ll learn more about these distinctions as the semester continues.
Verb Aspects
Verbs can appear in different forms, including infinitives (verbal nouns, like “to make” or “to do”) or participles (verbal adjectives, like “making” or “done”). For the first part of the semester, however, we’ll be focusing mostly on verbs that are conjugated (more on this in a bit).
As discussed in the page on inflection, we can change the endings of verbs to reflect different aspects of the verb through a process called conjugation. A conjugated verb, then, exhibits five major aspects that we can glean through the verb’s ending and the verb stem to which that ending is attached. Through this combination of stem and ending, we can figure out such aspects of a verb as who performs the verb’s action and how many of the actor there are.
The following is a broad overview of verbal aspects that we can identify through a verb’s stem and ending. We will reinforce these ideas as the semester continues, so do not worry if you’re overwhelmed by all of these ideas now.
These five aspects apply mainly to conjugated verbs, here defined as verbs with a person and a number. We may also refer to conjugated verbs as finite verbs, since we limit (or make finite) the verb by giving it a subject with a person and a number. Other verbal forms exhibit only some of the aspects (e.g., infinitives and participles both have tense and voice but not person, number, or mood); we will deal with those in later lessons.
- person. The person of a verb indicates the relationship of the speaker of the sentence to the subject.
- 1st person means that the speaker is the subject or is part of a group that serves as the subject. This is most often indicated through pronouns like “I” or “me” in the singular or “we” or “us” in the plural.
- 2nd person means that the speaker is addressing the subject. This is most often indicated through pronouns like “you” (singular or plural) or “you all / y’all” (only plural).
- 3rd person means that the speaker is talking about someone that is neither the speaker nor the addressee. This is often indicated through pronouns like “he, she, it, they” as subjects or “him, her, it, them” as objects. Also, a third-person subject can be explicitly named. For example, “The bees make honey” or “The sky is blue” – both “the bees” and “the sky” are examples of third-person subjects.
- number. The number of a verb indicates how many of the subject there are.
- singular indicates that there is just one of the subject.
- plural indicates that there are more than one of the subject.
- dual indicates that there are exactly two of the subject. (The dual is relatively rare, but it tends to be used with subjects that are natural pairs like eyes or knees in early Greek works like the Iliad or the Odyssey.)
- tense. The tense of a verb indicates when the action of the verb occurs. Focus for now on the first three, as they are the tenses on which we will focus this semester. [The final three (perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect) are relatively rare, especially in comparison to the first four.]
- aorist tense indicates that the action of the verb happened in the past instantaneously, at one single point.
- present tense indicates that the action of the verb is happening now.
- future tense indicates that the action of the verb will occur later but hasn’t happened yet.
- imperfect tense indicates that the action of the verb occurred continuously, over a period of time, in the past. Note the difference between the aorist and the imperfect; the former is a single point, like a photograph, while the latter takes place over a period of time, like a video.
- perfect tense indicates that the action of the verb occurred in the past with lasting effects into the present. For example, “he has died” – he died at a point in the past, but he is still dead today.
- pluperfect tense indicates that the action of the verb occurred before another event in the past but had lasting effects into that past moment. For example, “he had died before the war ended” – his death came before the war ended, and he was still dead when the war did end.
- future perfect tense indicates that the action of the verb will have occurred before another event in the future but will have lasting effects into that future moment. For example, “he will have died before the war will end” – his death will come before the war’s end, and it will last into that future moment.
- voice. The voice of a verb indicates the relationship of the subject to the action of the verb.
- The verb’s voice is active if the subject performs the action of the verb. For example, “The boy loves the girl.” The boy performs the action of loving.
- The verb’s voice is passive if the subject receives the action of the verb. For example, “The girl is loved by the boy.” The girl receives the action of loving, even though she is the subject, so the verb is considered passive.
- The verb’s voice is middle if the subject either performs the verb’s action with some self-interested motive or performs the action upon themself. It’s often difficult to express the middle voice in English, but often some form of a reflexive pronoun (e.g., “myself”, “himself”, “ourselves”) can help. For example, “He speaks (for himself)” or “We know ourselves.”
- mood. The mood of a verb indicates how the speaker thinks about the quality of the verb’s action.
- indicative mood indicates that the speaker considers the verb’s action a definite fact.
- imperative mood indicates that the speaker considers the verb’s action a command.
- subjunctive mood indicates that the speaker considers the verb’s action as less definite, a possibility rather than an established fact.
- optative mood indicates that the speaker considers the verb’s action a wish or even less definite than the subjunctive.
So, in sum, a finite verb has some combination of the following five aspects:
- person: 1st, 2nd, 3rd
- number: singular, plural, dual
- tense: aorist, imperfect, present, future, perfect, pluperfect, future perfect
- voice: active, passive, middle
- mood: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, optative
The act of identifying the five aspects of a conjugated verb is called parsing. So, if I were asked to parse the verb ἐκέλευσαν, I would answer: 3rd plural aorist active indicative. (We’ll learn much more about parsing and identification in the coming chapters.)
Dictionary Entry
When you are learning verbs in ancient Greek, you must memorize the way that the verb’s entry appears in a dictionary, such as the Complete Vocabulary list for this very textbook. You’ll notice that entries for verbs have seven sections: the first six, in Greek, are called principal parts and the seventh, in English, is the definition of the verb.
Here are two examples:
- κελεύω, κελεύσω, ἐκέλευσα, κεκέλευκα, κεκέλευσμαι, ἐκελεύσθην, “to order”
- δείκνυμι, δείξω, ἔδειξα, δέδειχα, δέδειγμα, ἐδείχθην, “to show”
Each of the principal parts gives you the stem for the verb’s forms in certain tenses and voices. Here’s an overview:
| Principal Part | Form of Verb | What You Can Conjugate With It |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 1st sg. present | present and imperfect tense forms in all voices |
| 2nd | 1st sg. future | future active and middle forms |
| 3rd | 1st sg. aorist | aorist active and middle forms |
| 4th | 1st sg. perfect active | perfect, plupf., and fut. pf. active forms |
| 5th | 1st sg. perfect middle/passive | perfect, plupf., and fut. pf. middle/passive forms |
| 6th | 1st sg. aorist passive | aorist passive and future passive forms |
Not all verbs have all six principal parts. In such cases, there will be a – in the places where the verb does not have a principal part. For example:
- δοκέω, δόξω, ἔδοξα, –, δέδογμαι, -ἐδόχθην, “to think”
Conjugation
The dictionary entry of a verb also indicates a group to which it belongs that dictates what kind of endings we can use to conjugate the verb in question. Confusingly, these groups are called conjugations, and there are two major conjugations of Greek verbs:
- ω verbs are those with a first principal part that ends in either -ω or -ομαι. These are also called thematic verbs.
- μι verbs are those with a first principal part that ends in either -μι or -μαι (with no omicron before it). These are also called athematic verbs.
There are further finer distinctions that we will draw as the semester wears on, but this is the general rule.
Principal Parts and Memorization
Many verbs have six principal parts, and while it is generally a good idea to memorize them all when you encounter new verbs, that is a lot to keep in mind. So, our goal in this textbook will be to keep the amount of vocabulary at a manageable level for retention and memorization and to suggest some strategies for memorizing piecemeal, rather than all in one fell swoop.
To that end, for all of this semester, we will be working primarily with three of the six principal parts of verbs: 1, 3, and 6. Please memorize those three principal parts and the definition of a verb as you come across new ones. We will format verb entries in the textbook (but not in the isolated vocabulary lists or reference charts) in such a way as to remind you what you should pay attention to: bolded principal parts should be memorized, while you can de-prioritize coded principal parts. So:
- δείκνυμι,
δείξω, ἔδειξα,δέδειχα,δέδειγμαι, ἐδείχθην, “to show” - κελεύω,
κελεύσω, ἐκέλευσα,κεκέλευκα,κεκέλευσμαι, ἐκελεύσθην, “to order”
We will use these two verbs primarily in the coming chatpers to demonstrate different verb forms and translations, so commit to memory the bolded forms above.
We will also use the bolded versus coded scheme in other contexts as well, so be attuned to that – bold encourages memorization, while code is merely for your information.
Compounds
Many verbs in Greek may be prefixed with a preposition to form new verbs. For example, we can combine δείκνυμι, “to show”, with the preposition ἐπί, “to” or “toward”, to form the verb ἐπιδείκνυμι:
- ἐπιδείκνυμι, ἐπιδείξω, ἐπέδειξα, ἐπιδέδειχα, ἐπιδέδειγμαι, ἐπεδείχθην, “to demonstrate, prove”
Note how we simply attach the ἐπί to the front of the verb, but its ι drops off in forms that begin with a vowel through a process called elision. If the final vowel of a prefix is elided by a verb form that begins with a rough breathing, the final consonant of the prefix may be aspirated. For example, if ἐπί were attached to a verb that begins with ἁ, the aspiration of the rough breathing would interact with the π to form ἐφα- (rather than ἐπα-).
Accentuation
Note that the accent on a finite verb form is recessive. Recall from the unit on the alphabet and accents that this means that the accent on a finite verb form wants to occupy the farthest-left syllable that it can. In 3+ syllable finite verb forms, this means the antepenult (unless pulled to the penult by a long ultima); and in 2 syllable forms, the penult. Note, for example, the following forms of the same verb:
- ἐκέλευσε
- κελεύει
In the first form, the accent (an acute) occupies the antepenult since the ultima, -ε, is short. In the second form, however, the acute accent gets pulled to the penult due to the long ultima, -ει.
Although the accent on finite verb forms is recessive, note that the accents on participles and some infinitives are persistent. More on this later.