Verb Overview
Verbs carry a significant amount of grammatical information within a single form. Unlike English, where auxiliary words often carry the burden of expressing tense, mood, or voice, Greek verbs encode much of this information directly in their endings and forms. Five primary features define a verb in Greek: person, number, voice, mood, and tense-form (which incorporates aspect and, in certain contexts, time).
Person
Greek verbs indicate who is performing the action through their endings. There are three persons:
- First person: I, we
- Second person: you, y'all
- Third person: he/she/it, they.
Thus, the verb endings themselves already communicate the subject, and a subject pronoun (like he or they) is not strictly necessary in Greek.
Number
Greek verbs indicate whether the subject is singular or plural. A verb form will tell you if one subject (e.g., he teaches) or multiple subjects (e.g., they teach) are performing the action.
Voice
Voice expresses the relationship between the subject and the action of the verb. Biblical Greek uses three primary voices:
- Active: the subject performs the action (He teaches).
- Middle: the subject acts with reference to itself or for its own benefit (He teaches himself).
- Passive: the subject receives the action (He is taught).
Mood
The mood of a verb indicates the manner in which the action is conceived—whether it is a statement of fact, a possibility, a command, or a wish. The major moods in Biblical Greek are:
- Indicative: factual statements of reality (He teaches).
- Subjunctive: probable or possible actions (He may teach).
- Imperative: commands or exhortations (Teach!).
- Optative: wishes or potential situations (May he teach).
Thus, mood conveys the attitude or perspective of the speaker toward the action of the verb.
Tense-Form (Aspect and Time)
The Greek tense system is one of the most important—and most misunderstood—features for beginning students. Unlike English, Greek tenses are not primarily about chronological time. Instead, they primarily express aspect—the way an action is viewed or portrayed. Time is only communicated in the indicative mood.
Aspect
Aspect refers to whether an action is ongoing, complete, or results-oriented:
-
Imperfective Aspect: presents the action as ongoing,
repeated, or progressive.
- Present tense: ongoing in the present (He is teaching).
- Imperfect tense: ongoing in the past (He was teaching).
-
Perfective Aspect: presents the action as a whole or
complete.
- Aorist tense: simple, complete action in the past (He taught).
- Future tense: simple, complete action in the future (He will teach).
-
Stative Aspect: presents a completed action with
continuing results.
- Perfect tense: completed with results in the present (He has taught).
- Pluperfect tense: completed with results in the past (He had taught).
Time in the Indicative
Only when a verb is in the indicative mood does tense-form communicate time in addition to aspect. For example:
- Present indicative → ongoing action in the present.
- Aorist indicative → simple completed action in the past.
- Future indicative → simple completed action in the future.
Outside of the indicative, tense-form signals aspect alone, not time. For instance, in the imperative, aorist vs. present simply shows whether a command should be viewed as a single, whole action or an ongoing/repeated one.