1Mood is an obligatory characteristic of verbs which reflects the user's state of mind about theverb. The indicative mood covers factual expressions, but it is also the general-purpose mood, coveringevery other state of mind which is not morphologically expressed as conditional, wishful, contrary-to-fact, or commanding. We will have a separate handout on mood when we get there.2In case you're wondering, the Greek future tense probably developed from the PIE desiderative,a stem-characterizing element.3The other class of verbal adjectives in -to/j and -te/oj, which are not participles, are formedfrom only one stem per verb, and do not differ in meaning according to the aspect of that stem.1Greek 101, Fall 2009Brian Lanter, T.A.TENSE AND ASPECT IN GREEKA Greek finite verb is composed of at least two morphemes: stem + personal ending. The stem indicates the meaning, while the personal ending indicates the person and number, andoften the voice (three characteristics fused into one morpheme). But the verb also contains otherinformation, either packed into the stem, or added by means of another morpheme. Two closelyassociated pieces of other information are called "tense" and "aspect." In the indicative mood,1these two are an obligatory, coordinated pair. In all other moods, verb forms can identify aspectwithout identifying tense. Infinitives and participles can also identify both tense and aspect, orjust aspect without tense. Verb forms cannot identify tense without identifying aspect. The factthat tense and aspect are coordinated explains why, when we parse a verb, we do not have toname the aspect – it's identified in the name of the tense. Tense. The characteristic of a verb which points to a time of occurrence relative to thetime of utterance is called a "tense," from Latin tempus = "time" (not etymologically related tothe English adjective and verb "tense," which is from Latin tensus = "having been stretched"). Morphologically speaking, English (like Proto-Indo-European) has only past and non-past forms,so English uses non-past forms to indicate future time as well as present time. Greek indicativeverbs can point to three different times: past, present or future. Greek indicative verbs havemorphologically distinct future stems, which form simple (one-word) future verb forms.2 In thefuture tense, two of the aspects are formally identical, as shown in the table below. Aspect. The characteristic of a verb indicating how the user regards its degree ofcompletion or result (beginning, duration, repetition, achievement, permanent effect, etc.), butnot relative to the time of utterance, is called "aspect," from Latin aspectus = "the act of lookingat." Greek verbs identify actions or states as having one of three different degrees of completionor result: ongoing, completed (with continuing results) and simple occurrence (completed butnot marked as to whether the results are continuing).English has three such categories also, sometimes called "progressive" (ongoing),"perfective" (completed with continuing results), and "simple" or "unmarked." In Greek, sincethe verb stem expresses aspect, most of the words made from verb stems can also express aspect,including finite verbs of any mood, infinitives (verbal nouns) and participles (verbal adjectives).3 A commonly noted difference between Greek and English verbs is that English has no2distinctively formed "aorist," the Greek and PIE aspect of simple/unmarked occurrence, but theEnglish unmarked present or past serves quite well for that purpose. "Aorist" means"indeterminate" and it has been the name of the Greek forms since at least the 2nd century BCE(Dionysios Thrax). Tense-aspect: an indicative verb form in Greek must express both time and aspect. Three possible times and three possible aspects yields a grid of nine possible tense-aspectcombinations. Greek has a fairly complete realization of this grid in its simple (one-word) verbforms. The seven named grammatical "tenses" of Greek are really tense-aspect combinations inthe indicative, covering eight of the nine possibilities. TENSE-ASPECT GRID FOR GREEK INDICATIVE VERBS:TENSE:PAST PRESENT FUTURE ASPECT:ONGOING ACTION imperfect present futureSIMPLE/UNMARKEDOCCURRENCEaorist [none] futureCOMPLETED WITHCONTINUING RESULTSpluperfect perfect future perfectTRANSLATING GREEK TENSE-ASPECT INTO ENGLISHAn English strong verb has a maximum of five simple (one-word) forms (except the verb"be" with eight), and a weak verb has only four, including all tenses, aspects, voices, moods,infinitives and participles. Greek verbs vary more than English verbs in the extent of theirrealizations, but a normal Greek verb has around 300 simple forms, not including infinitives,participles and other verbal adjectives. An English verb has a maximum of two tense-stems: past and non-past. A normal Greek verb has six tense-stems: present, future, aorist, perfect,perfect middle and aorist passive.Despite the great difference between English and Greek in the number of simple verbforms and tense-stems, the Greek tense-aspect combinations have common realizations withsensible names in English. By using simple verbs with unmarked aspect, and by usingcompound (more than one word) verbs, English verbs can translate the tense and aspect (andvoice and mood, for that matter) of most Greek verbs quite closely.Using unmarked aspect in English. English simple verb forms are unmarked as to aspect,while compound verb forms can specify ongoing or perfective aspect. Therefore, you may oftenuse either a simple or compound English verb to translate a Greek verb, as shown below.4Except perhaps in the "gnomic" aorist, which is often translated with the English present tense. The gnomic aorist expresses a general, proverbial truth, something which has happened in the past,happens now, and is bound to happen in the future – as in the English sayings "curiosity killed the cat"(sc. and is killing cats today and will keep killing cats in the future) or "faint heart never won fair lady."3• present tense: is always ongoing in Greek, so you can use the English compound presentprogressive:lu&w = I am releasingBut the English simple present, because it is unmarked as to aspect, can also indicateongoing present:lu&w = I release, I do release (the latter mostly in questions and negations)• imperfect tense: is always ongoing in Greek, so you can use the English compound pastprogressive:e1luon = I was releasing, I