Greek Present (Mood Goes Here) Active

Ah, verbs.

This post will cover the present tense in the active voice, across the indicative, infinitive, subjunctive and optative moods. Two different aspects are possible when speaking of the present tense. These would be the progressive aspect (“I am doing”) and the repeated aspect (“I do [habitually]“). Present gets its name from the time involved, which is “present”.

However, note that the infinitive, subjunctive and optative moods refer to aspect only, and not time. Infinitives also do not provide person or number.

The Present Active, in all the moods presented in this post, is based on Principal Part 1, the 1st Person Singular Present Indicative Active. Take the PP1 and remove the ending -ω. This will leave you with the present tense stem. To this ending add the appropriate ending for the person, number and mood (assuming tense and voice for this post are fixed, of course).

		Indicative	Translation		Subjunctive	Optative
1st Person Singular (1ps)		-ω	I am doing I do [habitually]		-ω	-οιμι
2nd Person Singular (2ps)		-εις	you (s.) are doing you (s.) do [habitually]		-ῃς	-οις
3rd Person Singular (3ps)		-ει	he/she/it is doing he/she/it does [habitually]		-ῃ	-οι
1st Person Plural (1pp)		-ομεν	we are doing we do [habitually]		-ωμεν	-οιμεν
2nd Person Plural (2pp)		-ετε	you (p.) are doing you (p.) do [habitually]		-ητε	-οιτε
3rd Person Plural (3pp)		-ουσι[ν]	they are doing they do [habitually]		-ωσι[ν]	-οιεν
		Infinitive
N/A		-ειν	to be doing to do [habitually]

Accent on verbs is typically recessive. Unlike the noun ending -οι, which counts as short for the purpose of accentuation, the optative ending -οι is always long.

In the 3pp present indicative active and the 3pp present subjunctive active, the final -ν is typically not used when followed by a consonant. This -ν is referred to as a movable -ν. The ν on the 3pp present optative active is not movable in this way. The ‘[ν]‘ indicates the fact that this character is not always present.