Greek Aorist (Mood Goes Here) Active
This post will cover the aorist tense in the active voice, across the indicative, infinitive, subjunctive and optative moods. The aorist tense has simple aspect and past time, equivalent to the English, ”I did.”
As with the present tense, note that the infinitive, subjunctive and optative moods refer to aspect only, and not time. Infinitives also do not provide person or number.
The Aorist Active, in all the moods presented in this post, is based on Principal Part 3, the 1st Person Singular Aorist Indicative Active. To form the indicative, take PP3 and remove the ending -α. This will leave you with the augmented aorist active tense stem. It is made up of the a stem plus a past indicative augment. To this stem add the appropriate ending for the person, number and mood (assuming tense and voice for this post are fixed, of course). To form the infinitive, subjunctive and optative, take the augmented aorist active tense stem and remove the past indicative augment to form the unaugmented aorist active tense stem.
| Indicative | Translation | Subjunctive | Optative | |||
| 1st Person Singular (1ps) | -α | I did | -ω | -αιμι | ||
| 2nd Person Singular (2ps) | -ας | you (s.) did | -ῃς | -αις/-ειας | ||
| 3rd Person Singular (3ps) | -ε[ν] | he/she/it did | -ῃ | -αι/-ειε(ν) | ||
| 1st Person Plural (1pp) | -αμεν | we did | -ωμεν | -αιμεν | ||
| 2nd Person Plural (2pp) | -ατε | you (p.) did | -ητε | -αιτε | ||
| 3rd Person Plural (3pp) | -αν | they did | -ωσι[ν] | -αιεν/-ειαν |
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| Infinitive | ||||||
| N/A | -αι | to do | ||||
As previously stated, accent on verbs is typically recessive. Unlike the noun ending -αι, which counts as short for the purpose of accentuation, the optative ending -αι is always long. The infinitive ending -αι remains short, however the accent always remains over the penult, a circumflex when the rules for accent allow it.
The sets of endings on the 2ps, 3ps and 3pp aorist optative active are used alternately with no change of meaning. In the 3ps aorist indicative active, the 3pp aorist subjunctive active and the 3ps aorist optative active there is a movable -ν similar to that found in the present tense.
