The Present Active Indicative and εἰμί

Verbs are where Greek does its heaviest lifting. A single word like λύομεν [LÜ-o-men] carries what English needs two words for: "we loosen." The ending tells you who is acting, so Greek does not need "I," "you" or "they" as separate words. Once you can read an ending, you can read a one-word sentence.

A few grammar words first

A verb's full set of forms is its conjugation. Each Greek verb form tells you five things. This lesson works with the first two and holds the other three steady.

• Person: who acts. First person is the speaker (I, we). Second person is the one spoken to (you). Third person is anyone or anything else (he, she, it, they).
• Number: singular (one) or plural (more than one). Greek also had a dual for pairs; we skip it here as we did for nouns.
• Tense: here, the present. The Greek present covers both "I loosen" and "I am loosening," and sometimes "I try to loosen." Context picks the English.
• Voice: here, active, where the subject does the action. Lesson 9 adds the middle and passive.
• Mood: here, the indicative, the mood of plain statements and factual questions. Other moods come in lesson 18.

λύω, "I loosen," in the present active indicative

λύω [LÜ-ō] means "I loosen, untie, set free, release." Grammars use it as the model verb because its stem never changes shape and it shows the endings cleanly. Smyth's full paradigm is section 383. Here is the present active indicative.

The υ in λύω is long in this tense (Smyth prints it with a length mark). The guide does not mark the length of ü, so hold it a touch longer than a short vowel and do not worry beyond that.

How the endings are built

Look at the plural endings: -ο-μεν, -ε-τε, -ου-σι. Between the stem λυ- and the personal ending sits a little vowel, ο or ε. Grammars call it the thematic vowel, and verbs that use it are called thematic or -ω verbs. The rule is simple: ο before μ or ν, ε before everything else. In -ουσι the ο has merged with a lost ν into ου. You do not need the history to read Greek. You need the pattern: o, e, e, o, e, ou.

Say the six endings until they are a chant: ō, ēs, ē, omen, ete, oosi. They work for hundreds of verbs.

The stem and new verbs

Take off the -ω of the first person form and you have the present stem. Add the six endings and you can conjugate any regular verb. Here are some common ones. The accent on these verbs is recessive (lesson 3): it goes as far back from the end as the rules allow. That is why λύομεν is accented on the first syllable and παιδεύομεν on the second.

φυλάττω and πράττω are Attic. Ionic and Koine spell them φυλάσσω and πράσσω, the same -ττ- to -σσ- swap you saw in θάλαττα / θάλασσα.

The movable nu

Some endings add a ν before a word starting with a vowel and often at the end of a sentence: λύουσι τὸν ἵππον but λύουσιν αὐτόν, and a sentence can end λύουσιν. This movable nu works like English "a" and "an." It changes nothing about meaning. Prose writers and modern editors are not perfectly consistent with it, so do not panic if a text has the ν before a consonant.

εἰμί, "I am"

The verb "to be" is irregular in nearly every language, and Greek is no exception. Learn it as a separate set. Smyth gives it in section 768.

The infinitive "to be" is εἶναι [Ē-nai]. You will use it in later lessons.

The accents of εἰμί

Every form of the present of εἰμί except εἶ is an enclitic (Smyth 181). It leans back on the word before it and is pronounced as part of that word, usually losing its own accent. The table above shows the forms as a grammar lists them. In sentences, they behave like this:

Two special cases appear constantly. When ἐστί means "exists" or "it is possible," or when it comes first in its sentence, or right after οὐκ, καί, ἀλλά, εἰ or ὡς, it is written ἔστι(ν) with the accent on the first syllable (Smyth 187). So: οὐκ ἔστιν, "it is not" or "there is not"; ἔστι θεός, "there is a god."

Two ways εἰμί works

As a linking verb, εἰμί joins a subject to a predicate, and both stand in the nominative: ὁ Θεόδωρος πολίτης ἐστίν, "Theodoros is a citizen." Remember from lesson 7 that the predicate noun usually has no article.

As a verb of existence, ἔστι and εἰσί mean "there is" and "there are": εἰσὶν ἵπποι ἐν τῇ νήσῳ would be "there are horses on the island." (ἐν with the dative means "in" or "on"; lesson 11 covers it fully.)

And Greek often leaves the linking verb out, especially in short sayings: χαλεπὰ τὰ καλά, "fine things are hard," with no "are" written. Plato has Glaucon quote this proverb to Socrates at Republic 4.435c, introducing it as τὸ λεγόμενον, "the saying."

Building sentences

Subject, verb, object

Lesson 6 taught the cases. Now they earn their keep. The subject of an active verb stands in the nominative. The direct object, the thing acted on, stands in the accusative. A person given something, or spoken to, often stands in the dative.

Word order is free

Because the endings carry the grammar, Greek can put words in almost any order. All of these say the same thing:

• ὁ ἀδελφὸς λύει τὸν ἵππον.
• τὸν ἵππον λύει ὁ ἀδελφός.
• λύει ὁ ἀδελφὸς τὸν ἵππον.
• τὸν ἵππον ὁ ἀδελφὸς λύει.

"Same thing" needs one footnote. Order is free but not meaningless. The front of a Greek sentence is the place for emphasis or for the topic. τὸν ἵππον λύει ὁ ἀδελφός leans toward "It's the horse that the brother is untying," or answers the question "What about the horse?" English uses stress and extra words for this. Greek uses position.

The beginner's habit to break: do not assume the first noun is the subject. A sentence like τὸν ἀδελφὸν παιδεύει ἡ ἀδελφή starts with the object. The sister teaches the brother. Read the endings every time.

Subjects you do not see

When the subject is a pronoun, Greek normally leaves it out. λέγω means "I say." λέγει means "he says," "she says" or "it says," and the context tells you which. Greek has words for "I" and "you" (ἐγώ, σύ, lesson 10), but uses them only for emphasis or contrast.

A neuter plural subject takes a singular verb

Here is a rule English has no parallel for. When the subject is neuter plural, the verb is usually singular (Smyth 958). τὰ δῶρα καλά ἐστιν: "the gifts are beautiful," with ἐστιν, "is," not εἰσίν. The Greeks seem to have felt a neuter plural as a collective, "the gift-stuff." Expect it, and do not "correct" it.

Saying no: οὐ, οὐκ, οὐχ

The negative for indicative statements is οὐ [oo]. It comes right before the word it negates, usually the verb, and changes form by what follows (Smyth 137):

• οὐ before a consonant: οὐ λύει, "he does not untie"
• οὐκ before a smooth breathing: οὐκ ἔχω, "I do not have"; οὐκ ἄγει, "he does not lead"
• οὐχ before a rough breathing: οὐχ ὁ ἀδελφός, "not the brother"
• οὔ with an accent when it stands alone or ends its clause: "no." You met it in lesson 4.

Asking yes or no

Greek can make a question out of a statement just by tone of voice and the question mark, which in Greek is the semicolon-shaped ; (lesson 3). λύεις τὸν ἵππον; "Are you untying the horse?" The little word ἆρα [Ā-ra] at the start marks a question openly: ἆρα λύεις τὸν ἵππον;

New words for this lesson

Besides the verbs in the table above:

A word on δοῦλος. Ancient Athens depended on slave labor, and the word means "slave," not "servant." Translating it softly hides something true about the society that produced the texts you will read. This course translates it plainly.