Edit: I keep getting messages of thanks and that's super cool! but be sure to send that gratitude to the sub's creator and the real person responsible for the amazing content here: /u/Nanocyborgasm

All I did was apply a little copy/pasting to what was already here :)

Edit 2: It looks like their account is suspended :(

Disclaimer: This course is about Classical Greek. For other dialects, your mileage may vary.

Lesson I: The Greek alphabet, breathings, and accents; elision

Lesson II-alpha: Nouns and the basics of declension, first declension

Lesson II-beta: variants of the first declension

Lesson II-gamma: first declension subtypes of –ης/-ας, an introduction to accents

Lesson III: Nouns of the second declension

Lesson IV: Adjectives of the first-second declension type, the alpha privative

Lesson V-alpha: The definite article (“the”) , position of the adjective

Lesson V-beta: the relative pronoun (“which”, “who(m)”)

Lesson V-gamma: The irregular adjective μέγας, μεγάλη, μέγα, big, great

Lesson VI-alpha: basics of the Greek verb system

Lesson VI-beta: Conjugation of the present tense, accentuation of verbs, word order

Lesson VI-gamma: Dative and Accusative of means, manner, respect, possession; putting a sentence together

Lesson VII-alpha: Future tense

Lesson VII-beta: Questions, Particles

Lesson VIII: Imperfect tense, Thematic principles

Lesson IX: Aorist tense, first

Lesson X: Aorist tense, second; formation of the first aorist tense stem; dissimilar tense stems

Lesson XI-alpha: Middle Voice and Passive Voice

Lesson XI-beta: Middle and Passive voice continued

Lesson XI-gamma: Use of the passive, genitive of agency, distinguishing between middle and passive; basic of prepositions

Lesson XII-alpha: Contracted verbs, nouns, and adjectives; omicron contractions

Lesson XII-beta: Contracted verbs and adjectives, epsilon contractions, compensatory lengthening and futures that look like presents

Lesson XII-gamma: Contracted verbs with alpha, formation of tense stems with contracted verbs

Lesson XII-delta: Contracted nouns with alpha (supplement)

Lesson XIII-alpha: Deponent verbs

Lesson XIII-beta: Prepositions concluded

Lesson XIII-gamma: Compound verbs

Lesson XIV-alpha: Nouns of the third declension

Lesson XIV-beta: irregular third declension nouns

Lesson XIV-gamma: Third declension subtype with –ις, and subtype with –εύς

Lesson XIV-delta: third declension nouns of subtype -υς /-υ, the diaresis

Lesson XIV-epsilon: contracted third declension nouns with epsilon

Lesson XIV-zeta: irregular third declension nouns

Lesson XV-alpha: Adjectives of the third declension, first-third declension adjectives

Lesson XV-beta: first-third declension adjective subtype of -ύς, -εῖα, -ύ, the irregular adjective πολύς, πολλή, πολύ

Lesson XV-gamma: contracted third declension adjectives with epsilon, the slightly irregular adjective πᾶς, πᾶσα, πᾶν

Lesson XVI-alpha: Adverbs

Lesson XVI-beta: Adverbs continued, enclitic adverbs, enclitics concluded, adverbial accusative

Lesson XVII-alpha: Perfect active tense

Lesson XVII-beta: Perfect middle/passive tense

Lesson XVII-gamma: Pluperfect tense

Lesson XVIII-alpha: Participles, basic principles

Lesson XVIII-beta: Active participles of the present, future, and second aorist tenses; first aorist active participle

Lesson XVIII-gamma: Contracted present and future active participles, perfect active participle

Lesson XVIII-delta: Aorist passive participle, middle/passive participles of the present, future, aorist, and perfect tenses

Lesson XVIII-epsilon: Present and Future Middle/Passive participles of contracted verbs

Lesson XVIII-zeta: Use of participles of attribution and circumstance, the negative adverb μή

Lesson XVIII-eta: Supplementary participle, genitive absolute

Lesson XIX-alpha: Infinitives

Lesson XIX-beta: Present and middle infinitives of contracted verbs, naturally paired verbs

Lesson XIX-gamma: Use of the infinitive

Lesson XIX-delta: Result clauses, how to say “so… that…” and “so as to…”

Lesson XX-alpha: Subjunctive mood

Lesson XX-beta: The Naked Subjunctive, Clauses of Planning and Effort

Lesson XX-gamma: Temporal clauses, how to say “while…”, “as long as…”, “until…”; how to say “before…”

Lesson XX-delta: common irregular thematic verbs

Lesson XXI-alpha: Optative mood

Lesson XXI-beta: Naked Optative, Sequence of Moods, Purpose Clauses, how to say “in order that…”

Lesson XXI-gamma: Crasis, or what English calls contractions

Lesson XXII-alpha: Conditional sentences, how to say “if…, then…”

Lesson XXII-beta: Temporal conditional sentences, how to say “when…, …” “after…, ….”; Conditional sentences with relative clauses

Lesson XXII-gamma: Expressions of fear, Counting

Lesson XXIII-alpha: Imperative mood

Lesson XXIII-beta: Irregular Imperatives, How to say “Come On!”, Multiple Imperatives

Lesson XXIV-alpha: Demonstrative adjectives, “This” and “That”, using demonstratives

Lesson XXIV-beta: Miscellaneous common adjectives

Lesson XXIV-gamma: The intensive adjective αὐτός, αὐτή, αὐτό, same, -self, the very, how to say “him, her, them”, how to say “no one, nothing”

Lesson XXIV-delta: The Deictic Iota, saying "this-here" or "that-there"

Lesson XV-alpha: Athematic verbs, general principles, Υ conjugation

Lesson XXV-beta: Athematic verbs, Ω/Ο Conjugation, present and imperfect tenses

Lesson XXV-gamma: Athematic Ω/Ο conjugation, mixed aorist conjugation

Lesson XXV-delta: Athematic Η/Ε conjugation, present and imperfect tenses

Lesson XXV-epsilon: Athematic Η/Ε conjugation, mixed aorist tense

Lesson XXV-zeta: Athematic Η/Α conjugation, present and imperfect tenses

Lesson XXV-eta: Athematic perfect and pluperfect active, root aorist

Lesson XXV-theta: Deponent athematics, Irregular athematics

Lesson XXV-iota: The irregular verb εἰμι, ἔσομαι, to be

Lesson XXV-kappa: The irregular verb ἔρχομαι, εἶμι*, ἦλθον, ἐλήλυθα, go, come

Lesson XXVI-alpha: Pronouns

Lesson XXVI-beta: Possessive adjectives, how to say mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs

Lesson XXVII-alpha: Interrogatives, where?, when?, how?; adverbs of location; who?, what?, why?; indefinites of someone, anyone, something, anything

Lesson XXVII-beta: Market talk, buying and selling; expressions of time and space

Lesson XXVIII-alpha: Indirect Statements, part 1

Lesson XXVIII-beta: Indirect statements, part 2

Lesson XXVIII-gamma: Indefinite relative pronouns and adjectives, how to say whoever, whatever; Indirect Questions

Lesson XXVIII-delta: Correlation with Causation; how to set up correlative sentences

Lesson XXIX-alpha: Comparatives and Superlatives, formation

Lesson XXIX-beta: More irregular comparatives and superlatives; SuperSuperlative!

Lesson XXIX-gamma: Expressions of the comparative, how to say “than... by...”; Comparative and Superlative Adverbs

Lesson XXX-alpha: Impersonal verbs

Lesson XXX-beta: Expressions of Obligation, how to say “it must be...” “have to...” and similar phrases; irregular impersonal verbs; accusative absolute; verbal adjective

Lesson XXX-gamma: Irregular verbal adjectives

Miscellaneous Topics

Attic Declension:

There was a special declension, derived from the second declension, which had an unusual modification. The final vowel of the stem exchanged value with the vowel of the ending, in a process called quantitative metathesis. This meant that a short vowel became its long vowel equivalent, and vice versa. What it amounts to for the modern reader is that all the endings of these nouns or adjectives were lengthened. In addition, the accent was an acute that was fixed to its natural position and never changed despite any conditions.

Very few nouns or adjectives utilized the Attic declension, but here are some examples.

νεώς, ὁ, temple

The original word for “temple” was ναός. The long alpha became a short epsilon, while the short omicron became a long omega. All the case endings that weren't already long became their long versions. This declension was not passed down to any future dialects of Greek, so that even the modern Greek word for temple is still ναός.

Μενέλεως, ὁ, Menelaos (originally Μενέλαος)

Adjectives that take the Attic declension were always of two terminations, since they could only use the second declension. Here is one such adjective. You'll notice an exception here in the neuter nominative or accusative plural, which ends in a short alpha.

ἵλεως, ἵλεων, propitious

Comparatives and Superlatives without Positives:

A few adjective sets of comparatives and superlatives had no positives. The more common were:

πρότερος, προτέρα, πρότερον, foremer, earlier

πρότατος, προτάτη, πρότατον, foremost, earliest

ὕστερος, ὑστέρα, ὕστερον, later, further

ὕστατος, ὑστάτη, ὕστατον, last, furthest

ἔσχατος, ἐσχάτη, ἔσχατον, farthest

Poetic Meter:

Unlike English poetry, Greek did not typically use rhyming. Since inflection could produce any rhythmic ending and word order was free, rhyming was not regarded as impressive. Instead, Greek used formulas of meter to create a particular pace to a poem, relying on long and short syllables, as well as accents to generate what must've been a musical quality to poetry. Greek poetry used a wide array of poetic metrical styles. Each often had an association with a particular brand of poetry, such as epic, lyric, and elegiac.

A meter consisted of a series of "feet", each defined by a particular sequence of long and short syllables. The meter of dactylic hexameter, for example, was the standard for epic poetry. It consisted of six feet of dactyls, which is one long syllable followed by two short. In this example, "--" will represent a long syllable, while "v" will be a short syllable.

Determining syllabic length in poetry is not exactly the same as for accents. A short syllable was defined as having a short vowel that was not followed by more than one consonant or a double consonant (ζ, ξ, ψ). A long syllable would either have a long vowel or diphthong, or a short vowel followed by two consonants or a double consonant. Note that spaces between words were not counted, so that even if a short vowel ended a word, it could still be considered a long syllable if the word immediately following began with two consonants or a double consonant. Only a line break reset the count.

The following line is taken from the Iliad. It's line 2.

οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε,

|-- v v|-- --|--v v|-- --|-- v v|-- v x

You can see that each foot is either a dactyl or a spondee. A spondee is two long syllables (-- --). It was regarded as nigh impossible to keep up dactyls all the time, so a spondee could replace a dactyl. Notice the sixth syllable is shortened. The last syllable could be abbreviated. Each meter had its own peculiar rules, which would take a whole course to elaborate. So long as you understand the principles in meter, as laid out above, you can decipher Greek poetry.

The exclamatory particle νή, "by...!":

This particle could be used to express an exclamatory affirmation by invoking a divine entity. The particle would be followed by the accusative of the god invoked. Its meaning was something akin to the English "by God!"

νὴ Δία ("by Zeus!") νὴ Ἀπόλλωνα ("by Apollo!")

The Gnomic Aorist:

Sometimes the aorist tense could express timeless action, often in statements of perceived universal truths. A whimsical example of a gnomic statement might be "An elephant never forgets." In Greek, it would be rendered as "ἐλέφας οὔποτε ἠμέλησεν," which could also be read as "an elephant never forgot" depending on context. According to some theories, the gnomic aorist is a remnant of an extinct mood called the injunctive, which was rendered from the third principle part with the same aorist endings but without an augment.

The alternative verbal adjective endings -ός, -ή/-ά, -όν, "-able":

Most verbal adjectives can be rendered with these alternative endings which feature a dropped epsilon at the end of the stem. However, their meaning is not same as the usual verbal adjective. Instead, their meanings are akin to the English suffix "-able" such as "walkable, conquerable, throwable." As an example, while λυτέος... means "must be loosened", λυτός... means "can be loosened."

The intensive particle -περ ("just so, very"):

This is an enclitic particle that can be added to almost any word, emphasizing it. It can be translated as "just" or "very." Ex: ὁ στρατηγόσπερ αὐτοὺς οἷος τ'ἐστὶν ἄγειν. ("Just the general can lead them.") Many conjunctions and adverbs use this particle, such as καίπερ ("however"), and ὥσπερ ("just as").

The verbal adjective can be formed from any verb simply from its sixth principle part. All is well so long as there is a sixth principle part, but in some verbs, either deponent or defective, there is no such thing. Many such verbs still have a verbal adjective, which is irregular. Some verbs which have a sixth principle part still form an irregular verbal adjective. Most irregular verbal adjectives seem to be formed from some semblance of the second principle part, lending credence to my suspicion that they may have originally been future perfect passive participles.

The following is a short list of the more common ones.

Irregular Impersonal Verbs:

Greek had two noteworthy impersonal verbs that were irregular. Their principle parts and definitions are given below.

δεῖ, δεήσει, ἐδέησε(ν), “there is a need”

χρή, χρῆσται, “there must be”

As you can see, both shared a similar meaning of necessity, so that they expressed an action that was considered mandatory. Between the two, χρή appears to have a somewhat stronger force than δεῖ. English also has several expressions that impart a connotation of obligation, such as might be expressed by the sentence “The city must hold fast against the enemy.” One way in which Greek utilized a similar scheme was through an impersonal construction, utilizing one of these two verbs.

Before delving into exactly how they played out, it will be necessary to show how they are conjugated. The bad news is that they are highly irregular. The good news is that, like all impersonals, they can only be conjugated in the third person singular.

The irregular verb δεῖ, δεήσει, ἐδέησε(ν), “there is a need”:

This is an epsilon contracted thematic verb that appears to be stuck halfway between contraction and uncontraction (the uncontracted stem of the first principle part is δε-). The present and imperfect indicative, as well as present infinitive, are contracted, while everything else derived from the first principle part is uncontracted. Here is how that breaks down.

The rest of the principle parts don't involve contraction, so they operate normally. You'll notice that there is a present participle. Yes, even an impersonal verb can have a participle, and since the impersonal subject is “it”, the participle will always be neuter singular.

The irregular verb χρή, χρῆσται, “there must be”:

This bizarre verb appears to have originally been a noun that meant something like “necessary” which combined with a form of the verb εἰμι, ἔσομαι (“to be”) to create a stock phrase of obligation, as in “it is necessary.” At some point, the noun and the verb fused in odd and unpredictable ways, as indicated below. In parentheses, I indicate what must've been the original uncombined form, for clarity.

Expressions of Obligation with Impersonal Verbs:

There were three ways that one could express obligation with an impersonal verb. Both verbs could use any of these means. They are no different than impersonal constructions for any other impersonal verbs and may, in principle, be combined.

• The object of the need, when a noun, is placed into the genitive.
• The agent of the need, the person for whom something is needed, is placed into the dative.
• If an entire thought is needed, it is placed into the subject accusative and articulate infinitive construction.

Below are examples.

πλείονος ἀεὶ δεῖ πᾶσιν. (Everyone always needs more. Literally: There is always a need of more for everyone.)

χρὴ τοὺς γέροντας τοὺς νέους διδάσκειν. (The old men must teach the young. Literally: It must be for the old to teach the young.)

Accusative Absolute:

Previously, we covered the absolute construction, where a phrase that was separated in sense from the rest of the sentence was rendered with the subject in the genitive and a verb of a participle in the genitive. The same can be performed for impersonal verbs, except that they use the accusative of the participle instead of the genitive. These participles will always be neuter singular, and will be identical to the nominative, being neuter. Since impersonal verbs have the non-existent subject of “it”, there will be no subject here. It will just be the neuter accusative participle with any relevant associations.

ἐξὸν νῦν ἔπωμεν.

(With it being possible now, let us speak.)

Obligatory Expressions with the Verbal Adjective:

Greek also had a second system to produce expressions of obligation. Rather than rephrase the subject and object of need around an impersonal sentence, it was possible to transform a verb into a form which gave it the force of obligatory action. This was where the verbal adjective came in.

The verbal adjective is, in my opinion, a rather misleading term, as participles are also verbal adjectives, yet they do not carry any sense of obligation. But that is what the standard texts call it, and so we must. The verbal adjective, in fact, functions just like a participle, in that it is derived from a verb and is an adjective.

To form the verbal adjective, take the unaugmented stem of the sixth principle part and undo the aspiration on the last consonant of the stem and the consonant adjacent to it, if there is any. This turns the aspirant into its original unaspirated form. Then, add the first-second declension endings -έος, -έα, -έον to produce the verbal adjective. (If no tau is produced at the end of the stem, it is inserted there.)

The aspirants and their unaspirated ancestors, are:

To see this in action, see the following examples, with meanings.

βουλεύω... ἐβουλεύθην → βουλευτέος, βουλευτέα, βουλευτέον, “to be deliberated”

ἄγω... ἤχθην → ἀκτέος, ἀκτέα, ἀκτέον, “to be led”

γράφω... ἐγράφην → γραπτέος, γραπτέα, γραπτέον, “to be written”

As you can see, as these are all derived from a fundamentally passive principle part, they all have passive meanings. The verbal adjective may have originally been an older system for forming the future perfect passive participle that survived only to be used in obligatory constructions. The future perfect passive carries the connotation of obligation in many Indo-European languages, including Latin.

Passive obligatory construction of the verbal adjective:

Once you have a verbal adjective for the verb you wish to make obligatory, and you wish to make the action passive, simply combine the verbal adjective with an appropriate form of the verb εἰμι, ἔσομαι, keeping the verbal adjective agreeing in gender, case, and number with the subject of the verb. If there is an agent of this passive, it goes into the dative.

Ex:

οἵδε οἱ ὁπλίται τῷ στρατηγῷ ἀκτέοι εἰσίν.

These warriors are to be led by the general./These warriors must be led by the general.

Active obligatory constructions of the verbal adjective:

If an obligatory action is desired in the active voice, such a sentence must ironically be rendered as an impersonal construction.

• The verbal adjective is rendered in the neuter nominative singular with the third person singular of εἰμι, ἔσομαι, since the subject has now become “it.”
• The subject of the obligatory action is rendered in the dative, as if it is the agent of the impersonal verb.
• The object of the obligatory action goes into whatever case is appropriate for that verb, usually accusative.

Ex:

δούλοις τοὺς κυρίους ὑπακουστέον ἐστίν.

Slaves must heed their masters. (Literally: In their masters, it is to be heeded for slaves.)

Some sentences lack any real subject and simply express action devoid of anything else. These are called impersonal sentences. A simple example in English would be the sentence:

It is raining today.

In this sentence, “it” is nothing. It is but a filler word in a sentence in which the action of rain falling is the more important. Greek also had a large array of verbs that could be used impersonally and some verbs whose only use was impersonal. As in English, the “subject” of such verbs was “it” and since “it” is a third person singular pronoun, impersonal verbs were always conjugated in the third person singular. As in English, weather related terms, as given below, took on an impersonal construction.

Ex:

τήμερον ὕει. (It is raining today.)

It would be quite boring to talk about nothing but the weather, so Greek also had plenty of impersonal constructions for many other situations. The following table lists the more interesting and commonplace impersonal constructions. Some of these verbs, unlike those for weather reporting, do exist in true personal meaning as well as impersonal. Their proper definition is given in the vocabulary. For these, I will simply indicate the first principle part as a third person singular. The rest you can derive from the vocabulary containing all the principle parts.

Despite varied meaning, all impersonals follow a typical grammatical formula. Because impersonal constructions lack a true subject, the cases used with them become skewed.

• The object of an impersonal verb, if it can have a noun as object, goes into the genitive.

• The agent of an impersonal verb, if it can have one, goes into the dative.

• The subject of some impersonal verbs can be an entire thought, in which case it takes a subject accusative and articulate infinitive as a verb.

Note that any combination of these is possible, or even all at the same time. Here are some examples.

δοκεῖ μοι ἀνθρώπους καὶ πόλεμον καὶ ἐπιστήμην ἐπίστασθαι. (“It seems to me best that men know both war and knowledge.")

ἔξεστιν ἡμῖν τὸν πόλεμον νικῆσαι. ("It is possible for us to win the war.")

τοιούτων πρέπει. (“Of such things it is fitting.”)

ἔξεστιν οὐκ εῖναι οὐδένες θεοί. (“It is possible that there are no gods.”)

συνοίσει σε τὸ ξίφος λείψεσθαι. (“It will be useful that you take the sword.”)

Vocabulary:

δοκέω, δόξω, ἔδοξα, --, δέδογμαι, -ἐδόχθην, believe, seem (takes an object clause as a subject accusative + infinitive)

ἔξεστι..., (from ἐξ + ἐστι) “it is possible”

ἥκω, ἥξω, be present, have come

πάρειμι..., belong

πρέπω, πρέψω, ἔπρειψα, be conspicuous, be noticed

προσήκω, προσήξω, concern

συμφέρω..., bring together

τήμερον, today

EDIT: 1/15/13, fixed assorted spelling errors and alignments; 7/3/13, fixed an example

There were formulas that allowed for expressions of comparisons when a comparative adjective was used.

• The simplest way was to simply add ἤ (“than”) followed by whatever was compared. The comparator could be either another noun, which required it to be in the same case as the comparative adjective, or even an entire clause. Ex: αὕτη ἡ καλλίων ἢ Ἀφροδίτη ἐστίν. (“That woman is fairer than Aphrodite.”) ὁ ἀξιώτερος ἄρχειν ἤ ζῆν ἐστιν. (“He is more worthy to rule than to live.”)

• Another way is to simply put the comparator into the genitive. Ex: αὕτη ἡ καλλίων Ἀφροδίτης ἐστίν. (“That woman is fairer than Aphrodite.”)

• The degree to which a comparison is made can further be expressed by a dative of degree of difference. Alternatively, the accusative of degree of difference, indicating a limitation, or even an adverbial accusative, can stand in place of the dative of degree of difference. Ex: αὕτη ἡ καλλίων πολλῇ Ἀφροδίτης ἐστίν. (“That woman is fairer than Aphrodite, by much.”) οὐδὲν αὕτη ἡ καλλίων Ἀφροδίτης ἐστίν. (“In no way is that woman fairer than Aphrodite!”)

Comparative and Superlative Adverbs:

• The comparative adverb is easily formed by simply taking the neuter accusative singular of the comparative adjective from which it's derived (even if that comparative was irregular). Ex: σοφός → σοφώτερον “more wisely”, καλός → κάλλιον “more beautifuly”

• The superlative adverb is also easily formed by simply taking the neuter accusative plural of the superlative adjective from which it's derived. Ex: σοφός → σοφώτατα “most wisely”, καλός → κάλλιστα “most beautifuly”

• The comparative adverbs take the same constructions as comparative adjectives that are indicated above.

• What this all amounts to is that these adverbs are nothing more than adverbial accusatives. That's the only reason I didn't call them neuter nominatives, although all neuter accusatives are the same as nominatives.

EDIT: 1/24/13, corrected ζῆν

Many common Greek adjectives had irregular comparatives and superlatives. These used an older and entirely different set of endings from those presented earlier. Adjectives that employed such irregular comparatives and superlatives also usually had unpredictable stem changes, necessitating their memorization. The lexicon will have a notation that shows the irregularity.

• The comparative was a third declension adjective with the endings -ων, -ον (genitive: -ονος).

• The superlative was a first-second declension adjective with the endings -ιστος, -ιστη, -ιστον.

The following is list of common adjectives that had such irregularities. Some positive adjectives had many comparatives and superlatives, each with a different meaning.

Declension of irregular comparatives with the endings -ων, -ον:

The comparatives formed as above are declined both according to the regular scheme for third declension adjectives, and an alternative where the genitive singular was -οος. The two apposed vowels then contracted, allowing for alternative case forms which only showed up selectively.

To illustrate, here is the full declension of the comparative καλλίων, κάλλιον:

Singular:

Plural:

The SuperSuperlative!:

When preceded by ὡς or ὅτι, a superlative becomes an even more powerful superlative. There is no way to translate this precisely, so some sort of rewording is usually required.

Example:

ἡ ὡς καλλίστη...

“the fairest of all...”

Although we have covered adjectives of all types, we have omitted one aspect of adjectives. So far, we had only given the positive degree of adjectives, but most adjectives can be modified to have two further nuances of meaning. These are the comparative and superlative. Comparatives are those that mean that something is “more than” something else. Superlatives are those that mean that something is “the most” of something. English has two means to form comparatives and superlatives. The first is to put “more” or “most” before the adjective (Ex: more worthy, most worthy). The second is to add the endings “-er” or “-est” to the adjective (Ex: worthier, worthiest). Greek, likewise, also had these two methods in forming its comparatives and superlatives.

• The adverbial comparative and superlative could be formed by simply putting the adverbs μᾶλλον (“more”) and μάλιστα (“most”) before the adjective. These are the irregular comparative and superlative adverbs of μάλα (“much”, “very”). Ex: μᾶλλον ἄξιος (more worthy), μάλιστα ἄξιος (most worthy)
• The suffixed comparative and superlative could be formed by modifying the ending of the adjective by adding the first-second declension adjective endings -τερος, -τερα, -τερον for the comparative, and -τατος, -τατη, -τατον for the superlative. It is this method that requires the most illustration.

Formation of comparatives and superlatives:

First-second declension adjectives:

To form a comparative or superlative out of a first-second declension adjective, remove the ending of the positive adjective and replace with either omicron or omega, then add the appropriate comparative or superlative endings as given above.

• What determines whether omicron or omega is added is based on whether the last syllable of the stem is long or short.
• If the last syllable of the stem is long, omicron is added, followed by the comparative or superlative endings.
• If the last syllable is short, omega is added, followed by the comparative or superlative endings.
• What determines syllabic length isn't exactly the same as for accents, for these purposes. A short syllable is one that contains a short vowel. A long syllable is one that contains either a long vowel or diphthong, or contains any vowel that is followed by two consonants or the double consonants ζ, ξ, ψ.

Some examples include:

Short syllable:

Long syllable:

Long syllable by two consonants or double consonants:

Note that the default accents on these are fixed to the comparative and superlative adjective set, and are unrelated to the accents on the original positive adjectives from which they were derived.

Third declension adjectives:

To form the comparative and superlative of third declension adjectives, simply add the endings -εστερος, -εστερα, -εστερον for the comparative and -εστατος, -εστατη, -εστατον for the superlative to the stem of the positive adjective.

Ex: εὐδαίμων, εὔδαιμον, εὐδαίμονος → εὐδαιμονέστερος, εὐδαιμονεστέρα, εὐδαιμονέστερον → εὐδαιμονέστατος, εὐδαιμονεστάτη, εὐδαιμονέστατον

Contracted third declension adjectives and third declension adjectives of -ύς, -εῖα, -ύ:

Both of these form their comparatives and superlatives by attaching the naked endings -τερος, -τερα, -τερον for the comparative, and -τατος, -τατη, -τατον for the superlative, directly onto the stem, which can be arrived at by simply taking the neuter nominative singular.

Ex:

σαφής, σαφές → σαφέστερος, σαφεστέρα, σαφέστερον → σαφέστατος, σαφεστάτη, σαφέστατον

βαρύς, βαρεῖα, βαρύ → βαρύτερος, βαρυτέρα, βαρύτερον → βαρύτατος, βαρυτάτη, βαρύτατον

Irregular comparatives and superlatives:

Unfortunately, Greek had a large quantity of irregular comparative and superlative adjectives. The lexicon will usually have a notation, near the end of the entry for the positive adjective, that will specify the comparative and superlative if it is irregular. Some more common ones include:

The Ancient Greeks were fond of setting up sentences that explained the correlation of two or more thoughts, perhaps because of their interest in philosophy. When such analogies were called for, specific formulas existed to elaborate the correlation. English has lost much of these nuances of speech, so that when a correlation is presented, the inference is left entirely up to context where Greek would be more explicit in exactly what was expected. A simple example in English demonstrates the difference, as in the following.

You win some, you lose some.

In this sentence, the reader is supposed to infer that there is some correlation between one clause and the other, but there is nothing but context to assist in that. Whereas, in Greek, these clauses would use μέν... δέ... as markers of a correlation. Here you begin to see the difference. Greek insists on marking correlations with specific particles, adjectives, or adverbs, whereas English does not always do so.

Correlative Sentences with the particles μέν... δέ...:

We have covered these particles before. These two postpositive particles have no precise translation, but some textbooks call them “on the one hand... on the other hand...”. It is often best that they simply not be translated, as the equivalent sentence in English will often amount to simply two clauses that share an implied correlation.

Correlative Sentences with the adjective τοιοῦτος, τοιαύτη, τοιοῦτο... οἷος, οἵα, οἷον..., such a, of the sort that:

This pair of correlatives sets up two thoughts which mean that something is “of a kind/sort/type as” something else. The first of the pair, τοιοῦτος, is declined like τοι + οὗτος, αὕτη, τοῦτο except that the demonstrative portion always lacks the initial tau (so the masculine genitive singular is τοιούτου not τοιτούτου). The second of the pair, οἷος, is a first-second declension adjective. A simple example of a sentence that uses this correlation would be:

Ἀχιλλεὺς τοιοῦτος δυνατὸς ἥρως ἦν, οἷος μυριοὺς τῶν Τρωικῶν ἀπέκτεινεν.

Such a mighty hero was Achilles, of the sort that he killed myriads of the Trojans.

There is also the idiomatic expression οἷος τ'εἰμι which has the same meaning as δύναμαι, and like it, can take an infinitive of what one is able to do. The adjective must be declined in the proper gender and number and the verb must be conjugated in the appropriate person and tense.

Correlative Sentences with the adjective τοσοῦτος, τοσαύτη, τοσοῦτο... ὅσος, ὅση, ὅσον..., so much/many... as many/much as...:

This correlation has a similar structure and formation as τοιοῦτος. The initial adjective is declined like τοσ + οὗτος, αὕτη, τοῦτο, without the initial tau of the demonstrative. The second adjective is a regular first-second declension adjective. A simple example might be:

τοσοῦτοι τότε ἀπέθανον, ὅσοι οὐκ ἐδυνήθησαν θαφθῆναι.

So many died then, as many as couldn't be buried.

Correlative Sentences with οὕτω(ς)... ὡς..., so... as...:

This pair can introduce the correlation “so... as...” as in:

ὁ οὕτω σοφός, ὡς αὐτοὺς λανθάνει.

He is so wise as he escapes their notice.

Interrogatives of Correlative Adjectives:

Correlatives have corresponding interrogative adjectives:

τοιοῦτος has ποῖος, ποία, ποῖον, “What sort?”

τοσοῦτος has πόσος, πόση, πόσον, “How much/many?”

οὕτω(ς) has πῶς, “How?”

As previously mentioned, any interrogative can be turned into an indefinite by simply prefixing with ὁ-, as in ὁποῖος, ὁπόσος, and so on.

EDIT: 1/1/13, fixed alignment and θαφθῆναι

EDIT: 1/6/13, I should also point out that the second adjective of a pair of correlatives can also be used as an exclamatory. Examples include οἷος = "Such a...!", ὅσος = "So much/many...!", ὡς = "How...!"

Indefinite relative pronouns and adjectives:

The relative pronoun and adjective ὅς, ἥ, ὅ, (which, what, who, whom) can be made into an indefinite (whichever, whatever, whoever, whomever) by simply combining it with the indefinite pronoun and adjective τις, τι (some, any), yielding ὅστις, ἥτις, ὅτι. Both are declined simultaneously and simply attached to each other. The following illustrates the declension, including some alternative short forms.

The indefinite relative pronoun has the same use as the relative pronoun, standing in a relative clause but having a less specific meaning, as in English. It has a similar meaning to a relative clause of a conditional statement, obeying the sequence of moods.

ὅστις ἐκεὶ ἱστῇ, πάντας φοβήσει.

ὃς ἐκεὶ ἱστῇ, πάντας φοβήσει.

Both mean “Whoever stands there will frighten everyone.” but the first is even more generalizing and uncertain. Because of similar meanings, indefinite relatives get little use in Greek. This same pronoun can also serve as an interrogative, meaning “Whoever?” or “Whatever?”

Indirect Questions:

Just as there are indirect statements, so there are indirect questions. An indirect question follows an introductory verb of seeing, thinking, hearing, or knowing, just as an indirect statement. A sentence in English containing an indirect question would be, “I know who you are.” where “I know...” introduces the indirect question “...who you are.” Indirect questions in Greek are formed in a similar way as indirect statements that use the conjunction ὡς/ὅτι.

• The indirect question is introduced with the corresponding indefinite relative pronoun or adjective, replacing the interrogative pronoun or adjective.
• The finite verb of the indirect question is unchanged if it was introduced by a verb in a primary tense, but changed to an appropriate optative if introduced by a verb in a secondary tense.

Examples:

γιγνώσκω ὅστις εἶ. (I know who you are.)

ἔγνων ὅστις εἴης. (I knew who you were.)

To form an indefinite interrogative out of any other interrogative is easy. Simply add the prefix ὁ- to the interrogative. This produces ὅπου out of ποῦ, ὅπως from πῶς, ὁπότε out of πότε, and so on.

If the indirect question has no interrogative pronoun or adjective, and is merely a question formed from a statement, the indirect question is introduced by εἰ (“if” “whether”).

Example:

γνωσόμεθα εἰ φίλοι εἰσίν. (We will know if they are friends.)

If such an indirect question has more than one option, each are introduced separately by εἴτε (“and whether” “and if”), or may be introduced first with πότερον and the second with ἤ (“or”).

The following examples all have the same meaning.

γνωσόμεθα εἴτε φίλοι εἰσὶν εἴτε πολέμιοί εἰσιν.

γνωσόμεθα πότερον φίλοι εἰσὶν ἢ πολέμιοί εἰσιν.

(We will know whether they are friends or whether they are foes.)

Vocabulary:

ἐκεί, there

ἤ, or

πότερος, ποτέρα, πότερον, which? (of two): this is actually the interrogative of ἕτερος, ἑτέρα, ἕτερον

Indirect statements with ὡς/ὅτι:

A more intuitive method of forming an indirect statement, for the modern speaker, is to simply herald the approach of the indirect statement with “that,” followed by the indirect statement with a straightforward clause in a finite verb. In this context, the Greek word for “that” is ὡς or ὅτι, which is immediately followed by the indirect statement in usual construction, with a subject nominative and a verb conjugated in its appropriate tense. Any verb, besides φημι or νομίζω, can introduce such an indirect statement.

Example:

λέγει ὡς παρὰ τὸν πολέμιον οὐ δυνάμεθα ὑπομεῖναι. (He says that we cannot survive against the enemy.)

As long as the introductory verb is in a primary tense (present, future, or perfect), no change falls upon the indirect statement. However, when the introductory verb is in a secondary tense (imperfect, pluperfect, aorist), the verb of the indirect statement is changed into the optative mood of the same tense as it would've had if it was indicative. If there is no such tense for the optative, it simply uses the tense available from the same principle part as the indicative tense was formed. Here is the same sentence with the introductory verb changed from present to imperfect.

ἔλεγεν ὅτι παρὰ τὸν πολέμιον οὐ δυναίμεθα ὑπομεῖναι. (He was saying that we cannot survive against the enemy.)

If the indirect statement is in the future tense while the introductory verb is in a secondary tense, the verb of the indirect statement must use the future optative. The future optative can be formed quite easily by simply using the stem of the second principle part with endings of the present optative. The future optative has no meaning outside the context of an indirect statement. Here is the same sentence rendered with the future optative.

ἔλεγεν ὡς παρὰ τὸν πολέμιον οὐ δυνησοίμεθα ὑπομεῖναι. (He was saying that we will be unable to survive against the enemy.)

Many occasions call for one thought to be the object of another. Many verbs that describe the actions of a third party, such as say, think, know, see, and feel, may take such constructions. In English, this is rendered quite simply by adding the conjunction “that” after the direct statement, and followed immediately by the indirect statement. As a simple example, we can take the following sentence.

He says that we cannot survive against the enemy.

In this sentence, there is the direct statement, “He says...” and the indirect statement, “...we cannot survive against the enemy.” which is the direct object of the direct statement. The approach of the indirect statement is indicated by “that”. Both statements have finite verbs with a specific tense, and can exist independently as separate sentences. It would be the same to simply render this as a direct quotation, as in the following.

He says “we cannot survive against the enemy.”

Just as in English, Greek has many ways of expressing an indirect statement. Some of it will appear quite intuitive but others will require a fair bit of explanation.

Indirect Statements with Subject Accusative and Infinitive:

The oldest means of forming an indirect statement is to simply put the subject of the indirect statement into the accusative and the verb of the indirect statement into the infinitive of the same tense as it would've had if it was a finite verb. This amounts to an artful use of the articulate infinitive with a subject accusative. Only a few verbs may form such constructions. They are νομίζω (think), φημι (say), and λέγω (say, speak). Here is the same sentence as above, in Greek, using this construction.

ἡμᾶς παρὰ τὸν πολέμιον οὐ δύνασθαι ὑπομεῖναί φησιν.

Here the finite verb δύναμαι (be able) is put into the present infinitive because the indirect statement is in the present tense. The verb φημι (say) is usually put at the end of the sentence, because it is enclitic. Notice how negation of δύνασθαι is with οὐ and not μή. This is because the original statement would've been negated the same way, so the same negating adverb is applied even in the indirect statement with an infinitive. English has, in a sense, preserved this archaic means of indirect statement. This sentence could've been translated as “He tells us to be unable to survive against the enemy.” but would seem rather unwieldy in English.

Since infinitives of this construction can take objects themselves with the accusative, it can be quite confusing as to what is subject in the indirect statement and what is object, as both are accusative. When this happens, Greek tends to rely on word order, putting subject earlier in the sentence than object. Take the following sentence:

νομίζω τοὺς θεοὺς ἄνθρωπον μισεῖν.

I think that the gods hate man. (“I think the gods to hate man.”)

Both θεοὺς and ἄνθρωπον are both accusative, but it's clear who is subject and object here.

Another factor involved in this construction occurs when the subject of the indirect statement is the same as the subject of the introductory statement. In this case, the subject is omitted, being considered redundant. Example:

νομίζω εὖ λέγειν. NOT νομίζω εὖ με λέγειν.

I think I speak well/true. (“I think to speak well/true.”)

Also noteworthy of mention is that when the tense of the verb in the indirect statement has no infinitive, it simply takes the infinitive of the principle part from which that tense is formed. So if the tense were imperfect, it would take the present infinitive. If it were pluperfect, it would take the perfect infinitive.

Indirect Statements with Subject Accusative and Participle Accusative:

An alternative to the previous means of forming indirect statements is to take the subject of the indirect statement into the accusative but then use a participle of the appropriate tense, also in the accusative, and agreeing with the subject of the indirect statement in gender and number, instead of an infinitive. Unlike the former, which is limited in usage to certain verbs, this method can apply to any verbs, except for νομίζω, φημι, or λέγω.

Example:

γιγνώσκω ἥρωα τὴν πόλιν σώσαντα.

I know that a hero saved the city. (“I know a hero saving the city.”)

When the subject of such an indirect statement is the same as the introductory verb, it is not only omitted, but the participle agrees in gender, number, and case with the subject of the introductory verb, thus making it nominative instead of accusative. This amounts to an artful use of a supplementary participle to the introductory verb. Example:

οἶδα ἀποθανούμενος.

I know that I will die. (“I, about to be dying, know.”)

As in the previous method, if there is no participle for a given tense, it simply uses a participle formed from the same principle part as that tense.

Vocabulary:

μιμνήσκω, μνήσω, ἔμνησα, --, μέμνημαι, ἐμνήσθην, remind, remember (perfect middle)

μισέω, μισήσομαι, --, μεμίσηκα, μεμίσημαι, ἐμισήθην, hate

νομίζω, νομιῶ, ἐνόμισα, νενόμικα, νενόμισμαι, ἐνομίσθην, think, consider

Haggling in the Agora, the genitive of price:

When relating the price of an item sold or bought, the price of the item is placed into the genitive.

Example:

ὁ ἵππον μοι ἀπέδοτο μόνον τετταράκοντα δραχμῶν.

He sold me a horse for only forty drachmae.

For financial specific vocabulary, see below.

The expression “δίκην δίδωμι” (give justice) means to pay a penalty, especially in court.

Expressions of time and space:

The genitive, dative, and accusative cases were used to express time in a manner analogous to their use in expressing space. The dative was used to express a fixed point in either time or space. The genitive was used to express the time span within which some event occurs, motion from another location, or even the space within which some event occurs. The accusative expressed the extent of time until some event will occur, either in the immediate future or present, or the distance which something will travel. Usage of these cases parallels that used with analogous prepositions. The only difference between use with time from space is that usage with time never requires a preposition, whereas space may require a preposition in some instances. Their examples are highlighted below.

Genitive of time within or space within:

τῆς μὲν ἡμέρας μανθάνομεν καὶ τῆς δὲ νυκτὸς σύνεσμεν. (We study during the day and have intercourse during the night. = We study by day and have sex by night.)

τῶνδε τῶν τειχῶν φυλαττόμεθα. (Within these walls we are protected.)

Dative of a point in time or space:

ἑκάστῳ μηνὶ τὸν σῖτον ἀποδίδομαι ἐν τῇ ἀγορᾷ. (Each month, I sell grain at the market.)

Accusative of extent of time or space:

ἓξ στάδια τρεῖς τε ἡμέρας βησόμεθα ὡς Ἀθήνας ἀφικώμεθα.

(We will walk for six stadia and for three days in order that we may reach Athens.)

Vocabulary:

ἀποδίδομαι, … (middle deponent of ἀποδίδωμι), sell

ἀφικνέομαι, ἀφίξομαι, ἀφικόμην, --, ἀφῖγμαι, --, reach, arrive

βδέω, –, fart

δραχμή, ἡ, drachma (currency, equally to 6 obols), literally: handful

μεῖς, μηνός, ὁ, month

μνᾶ, μνᾶς, ἡ, mina (= 100 drachmae)

ὀβολός, ὁ, obol (currency), literally: nail

τάλαντον, τό, talent (= 60 minae)

τίνω, τείσω, ἔτεισα, τέτεικα, --, ἐτείσθην, pay

πρίαμαι, -- , ἐπριάμην, buy

σῖτος, ὁ, grain

στάδιον, τό, stade (unit of distance)

σύνειμι, …, be together, have intercourse, associate (both literal and figurative)

EDIT:12/12/12, fixed an accent, 12/23/12 fixed φυλαττόμεθα

The interrogative adverbs where, when, and how are derived from enclitic adverbs that mean somewhere, someday, and somehow.

Notice that, while spelled alike, they are not the same. The interrogatives all have an accent and aren't enclitic, while the indefinite adverbs are all enclitic and have no native accent.

Adverbs and interrogatives of relative position:

Many adverbs that denote location or movement come in groups of three. One form denotes a fixed location. Another denotes motion from elsewhere. Yet another denotes motion to another place. The adverb που offers a useful example.

These distinctions are not idle, and appropriate use is demanded.

Example:

ποῖ ἐρχόμεθα; (To where are we going?) NOT ποῦ ἐρχόμεθα;

Another common adverb of location is ἐνταῦθα (“here”), whose motion towards version is ἐνταυθοῖ (“hither”), and whose motion from is δεῦρο. There are no fixed rules about how these adverbs are formed, but a common pattern is to use the ending -θεν for motion from, -ι, -θι, -σι for fixed location, and -δε, -σε, -ζε for motion towards. Example: Ἀθήναζε (“to Athens”)

Interrogative pronoun/adjective τίς, τί, who?, what?, why?:

This interrogative pronoun and adjective can mean who, what, or why. English uses who and what to distinguish a person from a thing where Greek simply uses gender. It is treated as a regular third declension adjective, in which τίς serves as the masculine-feminine form and τί the neuter. As an adverbial accusative, τί can also mean why. The declension of this adjective/pronoun is fairly regular, as is demonstrated below.

• The acute accent is fixed on the first iota at all times, and never changes to grave, even when followed by another word. (See next bullet point.)

• As in English, interrogatives usually begin the sentence. Ex: τίς εἶ; (Who are you?)

Indefinite pronoun and adjective τις, τι, someone, anyone, something, anything:

This adjective and pronoun means something, anything, or someone, anyone. Despite similar spelling, it is not the same as the interrogative, because it lacks an accent. Indeed, all forms of this are enclitic, and thus have no original accent. They gain an acute accent on the ultima only when following certain special rules, such as when the preceding word has an acute on its penult, or when they begin a sentence. The declension of this is otherwise identical to the interrogative, presented below, with some alternative forms.

Note that when τινων gains an accent on its ultima, according to usual rules of enclitics, that accent is a circumflex instead of acute (τινῶν).

Special circumstances appear when possession is expressed with pronouns. Because some pronouns have both emphatic and unemphatic forms, there are two different schemes for expressing possession.

Unemphatic possession:

Unemphatic possession with a pronoun may be expressed in the same manner as other expressions of possession – with the genitive case. The genitive case of the unemphatic pronoun is expressed usually following the possessed noun. This is possible with any pronoun, even those that lack a specific unemphatic form. Whenever a possessive is expressed, the article must always be used, since it always refers to a specific object. This is analogous to the rule with demonstrative adjectives.

Example of a regular possessive genitive:

ὁ στέφανος βασιλέως (the crown of the king)

Now examples of the same phrase with pronoun possessive genitives:

ὁ στέφανός μου (the crown of me = my crown)

ὁ στέφανός σου (the crown of you = your crown)

ὁ στέφανος ἡμῶν (the crown of us = our crown)

ὁ στέφανος ὑμῶν (the crown of You = Your crown)

Possession in the third person may use the genitive of a demonstrative adjective or the appropriate genitive of αὐτός, without distinction in meaning. The genitive demonstrative adjective tends to be in the attributive position, though, perhaps because Greeks were more accustomed to thinking of it as an adjective rather than a noun.

Example:

ὁ τούτου στέφανος = ὁ στέφανος αὐτοῦ (his crown)

The genitive of the pronoun is also used for reflexive pronouns, although, again, for inexplicable reasons, it is preferably placed in the attributive position.

Example:

ὁ ἑαυτοῦ στέφανος (his own crown)

Emphatic possession:

To demonstrate emphatic possession, specific adjectives were called for that were always placed in the attributive position, like adjectives normally are. All were regular first-second declension adjectives. Those adjective were as follows.

ἐμός, ἐμή, ἐμόν, my

σός, σή, σόν, your (singular)

ἡμέτερος, ἡμετέρα, ἡμέτερον, our

ὑμέτερος, ὑμετέρα, ὑμέτερον, your (plural)

Examples:

ὁ ἐμὸς στέφανος (my crown)

ὁ σὸς στέφανος (your crown)

ὁ ἡμέτερος στέφανος (our crown)

ὁ ὑμέτερος στέφανος (Your crown)

There were no specific possessive adjectives for the third person, so the unemphatic forms doubled for the emphatic. There were no specific emphatic reflexive possessive adjectives in the singular either, so the unemphatics doubled for the emphatics. For the plural reflexive possessive adjectives, the non-reflexive equivalent was combined with αὐτῶν.

Example:

ὁ ἡμέτερος αὐτῶν στέφανος (our own crown)

There was a special plural reflexive possessive adjective, σφέτερος, σφετέρα, σφέτερον, their own, used, but it too often required αὐτῶν.

Example:

ὁ σφέτερος αὐτῶν στέφανος (their own crown)

The special verb γίγνομαι, γενήσομαι, ἐγενόμην, γέγονα, γεγένημαι, --, become, be born, happen:

This is a special verb that means either to become, or to be born, and in both cases, takes its object in the nominative case. It may sometimes also take a genitive, as in “born of” someone.

Example:

οἱ ἥρωες θεῶν γίγνονται. (Heroes are born of gods.)

The verb to bear (a child) is τίκτω, τέξω, ἔτεκον, τέτοκα, τέτεγμαι, ἐτέχθην.

Pronouns are words that stand in for nouns. In English, pronouns include words like I, you, he, she, it, they, and we. We've been able to get by so far without them because the pronoun is incorporated into a finite verb through conjugation, and reflected in its ending. However, that is not to say that pronouns did not exist in Greek. It's just that they were not necessary, and because they were unnecessary, when they appeared, it was often for emphasis or clarification. As in English, there were pronouns for the first and second person, but because of declension, each pronoun had several case forms. English still preserves this to an extent. For example, the first person singular pronoun “I” becomes “me” when it is the object of a verb. “I” would be the equivalent of the nominative case and “me” would be accusative. The same can be seen in the first person plural pronoun “we,” whose accusative equivalent would be “us.” You'll note that the object and subject pronouns do not resemble each other at all, and in Greek, pronouns were irregularly declined, so that it will be necessary to display their declension in entirety.

First Person Pronouns, I/me (singular), we/us (plural):

Here is presented the complete declension of this pronoun pair.

Some pronouns had an emphatic and unemphatic pair, where the emphatic was used, as the name suggests, to especially emphasize the pronoun. Where there is such distinction, the unemphatic pronoun is always enclitic, explaining the lack of its accent. The difference between them, as you can see, was only slight. There was no unemphatic of “I” because anyone calling attention to themselves never did so unemphatically.

Second Person Pronouns, you (singular and plural):

English does not distinguish between the singular of “you” and the plural, using the same word interchangeably. Greek, however, did so. In addition, the singular had an emphatic and unemphatic pair, although the only difference was the accent in the emphatic. Furthermore, you'll notice that the second person plural differs from the first person plural by only a single vowel.

Third Person Pronouns, he, she, it, him, her, they, them:

As previously mentioned, Greek had no specific words for the third person pronoun, whether singular or plural. When called for, a third person pronoun in the nominative used a demonstrative adjective in the nominative (οὗτος, ὅδε, ἐκεῖνος, etc) or an appropriate form of αὐτός in any other case.

Reflexive pronouns:

When the object of a verb is the same as the subject, English uses the same object pronoun but then adds the suffix “-self.” Ex:

He has hurt himself.

Greek did the very same thing when it wanted to express a reflexive pronoun. The Greek word for “-self” is αὐτός, which was suffixed to the appropriate emphatic pronoun and declined as appropriate for αὐτός. Note that the middle voice is not equivalent to a reflexive pronoun, because the subject of the middle voice is only an indirect recipient of the action, whereas a reflexive pronoun is the direct recipient.

First Person Reflexive Pronouns myself, ourselves:

• The first person plural pronoun cannot be combined into a single word with αὐτός, so they are simply written as two separate words.
• Since αὐτός has to decline according to gender, there may be more than one form for some cases.
• There is no nominative case because reflexives are never subjects of verbs by definition.

Second Person Reflexive Pronoun yourself, yourselves:

• The singulars here have an alternative short form with a dropped epsilon.
• The plural forms cannot fuse into a single word, so they are just written separately.

Third Person Reflexive Pronoun himself, herself, themselves:

• This is derived from the archaic reflexive pronoun ἕ, which was used for all genders, and is sometimes found even in Classical texts.
• Both singulars and plurals have an alternative short form with a dropped epsilon.
• An additional alternative in the plural was σφῶν, σφίσι(ν), σφᾶς combined with the appropriate case form of αὐτός. This is also an archaic reflexive pronoun that is sometimes found in Classical texts.

I just want to make one thing clear to everyone following this course. When I say that I am teaching Ancient Greek, what I refer to is Classical Greek, which is the Attic dialect of Greek spoken during the Classical Age, c. 510-323 BC. There were many other dialects of Greek that, while mostly mutually intelligible to contemporary native speakers, might not be so readily understood by students of today. Classical Greek is preferred because it has the largest volume of preserved literature. It is also useful if you wish to translate writings from Koine, a later universal dialect that developed during the Hellenistic Age (c. 323-31 BC). Most of Koine was derived from Attic, with the addition of some foreign loanwords, and so should prove fairly intelligible to the student of Classical Greek.

The Greek verb corresponding to the English “to go” is highly irregular and deserves special inspection. It is technically regarded as an athematic, but has so much irregularity that it is barely recognizable as such, making it necessary to memorize most of its forms. In addition to bearing irregular forms, it also does not follow the usual scheme of principle parts.

Before setting out to explain what is irregular, it is useful to explain what is regular about this verb.

• The third principle part is a straightforward thematic second aorist with a single irregularity. The second person singular aorist active imperative is ἐλθέ (not ἔλθε).

• The fourth principle part is regular and thematic.

• Except for the present indicative, which is a middle deponent, all the tenses exist only in the active voice.

Unfortunately, this is about where simplicity ends and intense irregularity begins. At this point, it is necessary to explain each tense's behavior in gross detail.

The present indicative, ἔρχομαι, is a thematic middle deponent that is actually regular. The future active indicative, however, is supplied by εἶμι, even though it conjugates as an irregular athematic present active, as shown below.

Future Active Indicative:

A few principles will suffice to explain these irregularities.

• Like regular athematic verbs, this has vowel gradation, albeit an irregular one. The long grade vowel is εἰ- and used for the singulars, while the short grade vowel is ἰ- and used for the plurals.

• The endings are the regular present active athematic endings, except for the second person singular, which has no ending.

• Despite similarity to the verb "εἰμι, ἔσομαι, to be," this verb is not enclitic, and does carry a normal recessive accent.

Where things become even more complicated is that εἶμι, because it is derived from an athematic present, also provides all verbal forms, besides the present middle indicative, that would be supplied by the first principle part AND the second principle part. That means that εἶμι supplies the verbal forms for all of the following, most of which are irregular:

• Present Active Subjunctive
• Present Active Optative
• Present Active Imperative
• Imperfect Active Indicative
• Present Infinitive = Future Infinitive
• Present Active Participle = Future Active Participle

Present Active Subjunctive:

Following usual athematic formulas, the present active subjunctive uses the short vowel grade, ἰ-, with subjunctive active endings.

Present Active Optative:

The present active optative is rendered using the short vowel grade but with thematic endings.

Present Active Imperative:

This is formed in fairly regular fashion by attaching usual athematic imperative endings to the short grade vowel.

Imperfect Active Indicative:

The imperfect is formed by augmenting the long grade vowel from εἰ- to ᾐ-. The endings are irregular in the singular but use regular imperfect athematic endings in the plural.

Present or Future Active Infinitive:

ἰέναι

Present or Future Active Participle:

ἰών, ἰοῦσα, ἰόν (ἰόντος, ἰούσης, ἰόντος)

• The second principle part of this verb is deliberately written incorrectly as εἶμι, as it should technically be a first principle part. I did this so as to remind everyone of how it's treated as a future indicative but with a twist. Don't worry about what the real second principle part should be, as it never comes up in Classical Greek.

The verb “to be” is irregular in most languages, and Ancient Greek was no exception. Technically regarded as an athematic, this verb bears few features consistent with athematic verbs, and needs to be simply memorized in entirety. But have no fear! It isn't as daunting as it seems. Despite its broad irregularity, it has two features going for it that make memorization easier than expected.

• This verb is defective, bearing only the first two principle parts.
• Each tense has only one voice. The first principle part comes only in the active voice, and the second is a middle deponent.

With such reassurance, we can begin to delve into each tense in detail.

Present Active Indicative:

• Except for the second person singular, each form of the present indicative is enclitic, lacking a native accent.
• There is no vowel gradation. Instead, the stem vacillates between εἰ- and ἐσ- with no particular pattern.
• The personal endings mostly approximate the present active athematic endings. The differences include the second person singular, which has no ending, and the third person singular, which uses the primeval ending -τι.

Imperfect Active Indicative:

• The stem in the imperfect is consistently ἠ-, again without vowel gradation.
• Only the singular personal endings are irregular. The plurals use regular athematic imperfect endings.

Present Active Imperative:

• The second personal singular is irregular, and happens to be identical to the imperative of οἶδα.
• All others use regular imperative endings with the stem ἐσ-, except that the third person plural ending swallows the nu of -ντων.

Present Active Infinitive:

εἶναι

Present Active Subjunctive:

The subjunctive consists simply of the active subjunctive endings alone, without a stem.

Present Active Optative:

The optative consists simply of the endings of the aorist passive optative alone, without a stem.

Present Active Participle:

This is actually entirely regular, consisting of the thematic present active participle without a stem, and using second aorist active accents. It is ὤν, οὖσα, ὄν with genitives of ὄντος, οὔσης, ὄντος. The neuter plural participle, τὰ ὄντα, is used to mean actual things, or real things, as opposed to unreal or only possible things, and comes up in philosophical conversations.

Future Tense:

The future is a middle deponent with a single irregularity in the indicative. The third person singular is ἔσται, not ἔσεται. The rest of the future tense is an entirely regular thematic verb.

Use of εἰμι, ἔσομαι:

English speakers will find reasonable familiarity with Greek's use of this verb, but a few warnings are required.

• The object of the verb is placed into the nominative, not the accusative.
• The verb is often omitted, especially in the third person, and tense supplied by context (assumed to be present if no context is provided). This is especially so when there is use of the adjective in the predicative position. Ex: ἡ δημοκρατία ἀγαθή ἐστιν. = ἡ δημοκρατία ἀγαθή. (Democracy is good.)
• It can mean “there is/was” or “there are/were” when using the third person singular or plural. In that case, when in the present tense, it usually begins the sentence and takes an acute accent on the first syllable. Ex: εἴσι πολλοὶ δοῦλοι ἐν τῇ πόλει. (There are many slaves in the city.)

Deponent athematic verbs:

As in thematic verbs, there is nothing to stop athematic verbs from being deponent. Of these, there are very few, as there are few athematic verbs generally. They do, however, have special meanings that deserve attention.

δύναμαι, δυνήσομαι, --, --, δεδύνημαι, ἐδυνήθην, be able, can:

This verb has an athematic deponent first principle part, and means to be able to do something. As in English, it takes an infinitive.

Ex:

ἄνευ ὅπλων δυνάμεθα ὑπομένειν.

We are able to survive without weapons. We can survive without weapons.

ἐπίσταμαι, ἐπιστήσομαι, --, --, --, ἠπιστήθην, know, understand:

This verb means “to know” in the sense of understanding something's function. It is often used to claim knowledge of a skill. The first principle part is an athematic deponent with an irregular augment. Despite being a compound, augmentation is performed on the initial epsilon, rather than before the uncompounded verb, so that the imperfect would be ἠπιστάμην, etc.

Irregular athematic verbs:

οἶδα, εἴσομαι, know:

This verb means “to know” in the sense of factual knowledge. Its first principle part is an irregular athematic which is conjugated as if it were a fourth principle part, using perfect and pluperfect active endings for present and imperfect meanings. To make matters more complicated, it has triple vowel gradation! Furthermore, this gradation is not based on any principles previously encountered, and must simply be memorized. A few principles should help keep things in perspective.

• The stem οἰδ- is used in the singulars of the perfect active.
• The stem ἰσ- is used in the plural of the perfect active.
• The stem εἰδ- is used in all other forms, and augmentation for the pluperfect is taken from this stem, producing ᾐδ-.

The following tables illustrate these premises. Alternative forms are not indicated, but can be found on the UC Berkeley site for those interested.

Perfect Active Indicative:

Pluperfect Active Indicative:

Perfect Infinitive Active:

εἰδέναι

Perfect Subjunctive Active:

Perfect Optative Active:

Perfect Imperative Active:

Perfect Active Participle:

εἰδώς, εἰδυῖα, εἰδός (εἰδότος, εἰδυίας, εἰδότος)

κεῖμαι, κείσομαι, lie (down):

This verb is regarded as the proper passive of τίθημι. It is both irregular and a deponent athematic in the first principle part. The following formulas explain its conjugation.

• The long vowel grade is -ει- while the short is -ε-.
• The long vowel grade is used in all forms except the subjunctive and optative.
• The short vowel grade is used in the subjunctive and optative without any contraction.

Present Middle/Passive Indicative:

Imperfect Middle/Passive Indicative:

Present Middle/Passive Subjunctive:

Present Middle/Passive Optative:

Present Middle/Passive Infinitive:

κεῖσθαι

Present Middle/Passive Imperative:

Present Middle/Passive Participle:

κείμενος, κειμένη, κείμενον

A related verb is κάθημαι, καθήσομαι, sit, which also has a fixed eta as its linking vowel throughout its conjugation.

The only common verb that uses an athematic fourth principle part is ἵστημι. The result is to form the perfect and pluperfect active tenses with an athematic scheme. Like other athematic tenses, this one uses vowel gradation, and also, like the mixed aorist, uses a mixed conjugation scheme. The singulars are conjugated the same as the thematic perfect active, and use the long vowel grade of eta in the stem. The plurals are conjugated with the short grade of the linking vowel, a short alpha, but otherwise use the same personal endings as the thematic perfect active.

Perfect Active Indicative:

Notice the same familiar contraction in the third person plural.

The pluperfect active has an augment we've seen before with many verbs that begin on a vowel with a rough breathing. The rough breathing is treated as a consonant, so that the initial vowel is contracted with epsilon, forming the augment “εἱ-”. Complicating the matter is that the plurals use short grade vowel without an augment, creating many similar forms to the perfect.

Pluperfect Active Indicative:

Perfect Active Infinitive:

ἑστάναι

Perfect Active Participle:

The athematic perfect active participle is similar to the thematic in that it is a first-third declension adjective. It differs only slightly in its declension. The participles are ἑστώς, ἑστῶσα, ἑστός in the nominative singular, and ἑστῶτος, ἑστώσης, ἑστῶτος in the genitive singular.

Root Aorist:

Another type of athematic conjugation is found only in the aorist active, and is called the root aorist. Like other athematic conjugations, each verb provides its own linking vowel pair. The difference here is that the long grade vowel is used in nearly the entire conjugation scheme, rather than isolated to the singulars. The only places where the short vowel grade is used is in the optative mood, the third person plural imperative, and the participles. It is of notable mention that the root aorist has only an active voice, yet uses the thematic aorist passive personal endings. There are only a few root aorist verbs, and being among the most common in the language, are worth committing to memory. They are shown below with their vowel pairs indicated.

ἁλίσκομαι, ἁλώσομαι, ἑάλων, ἥλωκα, be caught (passive of αἱρέω); vowel pair ω/ο

βαίνω, -βήσομαι, -ἔβην, βέβηκα, walk, step; vowel pair η/α

γιγνώσκω, γνώσομαι, ἔγνων, ἔγνωκα, ἔγνωσμαι, ἐνώσθην, recognize, know, be aware; vowel pair ω/ο

δύω, -δύσω, -ἔδυσα/ἔδυν, δέδυκα, δέδυμαι, -ἐδύθην, sink; vowel pair ῡ/ῠ

ἵστημι, στήσω, ἔστην (intr)/ἔστησα (tr), ἕστηκα, ἕσταμαι, ἐστάθην, stand, erect; vowel pair η/α

The conjugation of ἔγνων will be presented below, and can be generalized to the others.

Aorist active indicative:

Aorist active subjunctive:

Aorist active optative:

Aorist active imperative:

Note here the use of the ending -θι in the second person singular.

Aorist active participle:

The nominative singulars of these participles uses compensatory lengthening of the short vowel, producing a long alpha from short alpha, ου from ο, and long upsilon from short upsilon.

Examples:

ἔστην: στάς, στᾶσα, στάν (στάντος, στάσης, στάντος)

ἔγνων: γνούς, γνοῦσα, γνόν (γνόντος, γνούσης, γνόντος)

ἔδυν: δύς, δῦσᾰ, δύν (δύντος, δύσης, δύντος)

This athematic conjugation uses the linking vowel pairs eta and short alpha, and largely the same pattern of vowel gradation as seen in other athematic conjugations. This conjugation has only two verbs.

ἵστημι, στήσω, ἔστην (intr)/ἔστησα (tr), ἕστηκα, ἕσταμαι, ἐστάθην, stand, erect

φημι, φήσω, ἔφησα, say

Each verb has its own peculiarities which require some warning and explanation before we proceed to expound on the conjugation.

The verb ἵστημι has either intransitive or transitive meaning. An intransitive verb is one that, although having an active voice, has no object. A transitive verb is one that does carry an object. This verb's intransitive meaning is to simply stand by oneself, as in “I am standing in the street.” The transitive meaning of this verb is to set an object down into a standing position, as in “We stood the statue in the public square.” All the principle parts of this verb may use either meaning, except for the third, which has two separate principle parts for each meaning. The intransitive meaning of simply standing by oneself is supplied by ἔστην, which uses a different athematic conjugation from what we've already covered. This will be reviewed at a later time. The transitive meaning is supplied by ἔστησα, which is a regular thematic first aorist conjugation, and so requires no further explanation. This verb also has an athematic fourth principle part, ἕστηκα, the only instance I'm aware of where there is such a thing. This will also be covered later.

The verb φημι is used preferentially to λέγω when quoting another source, but both otherwise have the same meaning, “say.” It is a defective verb with only three principle parts, and has only an active voice, and so can be said to be an “active deponent.” Only the first principle part is athematic. This verb is unusual in that it has no native accent in the present active indicative, and is instead enclitic, following the same rules for accentuation as all two-syllable enclitics. It has a single irregularity in its conjugation, but otherwise conjugates the same as ἵστημι, using usual athematic schemes, as is illustrated below.

Present Active Indicative:

• The only non-enclitic form of φημι, which is also irregular, is the second person singular.

• The third person plural is formed by contracting two apposed short alphas into a long alpha. {ἱσταάσι(ν)→ ἱστᾶσι(ν)}

Imperfect Active Indicative:

In many ways, this conjugation is more predictable than others for the imperfect. For augmentation, the initial short iota of ἵστημι is simply exchanged for a long iota, and the singulars conjugate with the long vowel grade, while the plurals conjugate on the short vowel grade. This often leaves the imperfect to resemble the present tense.

The rest of the conjugation should be quite predictable.

Present Middle/Passive Indicative:

Imperfect Middle/Passive Indicative:

Present Active Infinitive:

ἱστάναι, φάναι

Present Middle/Passive Infinitive:

ἵστασθαι

Present Active Participle:

ἱστάς, ἱστᾶσα, ἱστάν

φάς, φᾶσα, φάν

Present Active Subjunctive:

Present Middle/Passive Subjunctive:

Present Active Optative:

Present Middle/Passive Optative:

Present Active Imperative:

Conjugation of the imperative here is rather unpredictable, especially for the second person singular.

Present Middle/Passive Imperative:

The mixed aorist conjugation has already been covered. All that remains is to elaborate it for this linking vowel pair. The mixed aorist active indicative consists of the first aorist with the singular forms, using the long vowel grade in the stem, and the second aorist with the plural forms, using the short grade linking vowel. Here are both verbs, presented side by side.

Aorist active indicative:

The reason for the stem “-εἱ-” in the plurals in the last column is due to augmentation of the original stem -ἑ-. The initial rough breathing is treated as an invisible consonant, and the apposition of two epsilons creates the contraction “ει”.

All other forms use the short grade of the linking vowel, which in this case is epsilon.

Aorist middle indicative:

Aorist subjunctive active:

Aorist subjunctive middle:

Aorist optative active:

Aorist optative middle:

Aorist imperative active:

Aorist imperative middle:

Aorist active infinitive:

θεῖναι, -εἷναι

Aorist middle infinitive:

θέσθαι, -ἕσθαι

Aorist active participle:

θείς, θεῖσᾰ, θέν

-εἵς, -εἷσα, -ἕν

Aorist middle participle:

θέμενος, θεμένη, θέμενον

-ἕμενος, -ἑμένη, -ἕμενον

This athematic conjugation contains only two common verbs. Despite some differences, they conjugate in a similar manner and so are useful to learn together. Both have athematic first and third principle parts. They are:

ἵημι, -ἥσω, -ἧκα, εἷκα, -εἷμαι, -εἵθην, release, unleash, send forth

τίθημι, θήσω, ἔθηκα, τέθηκα, τέθειμαι, ἐτέθην, put, place

All principle parts of ἵημι besides the first exist only as compounds, which is why they have a hyphen before them. Both of these verbs are very common, whether as simple or compound verbs, and so need to be committed to memory.

Present Active Indicative:

Like all athematic verbs, this conjugation is characterized by vowel gradation in the active voice. The singulars take the long vowel grade, which is eta. The plurals take the short vowel grade, which is epsilon. The following tables will demonstrate the conjugation in the present active indicative. The irregular forms will be indicated in italics.

You will note that both are, with the exception of the third person plural and one alternate form in the second person singular, consistent in their conjugation, using the stems τιθ- and ἱ-. This consistency is largely preserved throughout the conjugation.

Present Middle/Passive Indicative:

All of these use the short grade of the linking vowel with usual endings.

Imperfect Active Indicative:

The singulars of this tense take the long vowel grade using compensatory lengthening, except in the first person singular, where definitive lengthening is employed. The plurals use the short vowel grade of the linking vowel. Augmentation proceeds according to regular rules.

Imperfect Middle/Passive Indicative:

These also use the short grade of the linking vowel with expected endings.

Present Infinitive:

Using the short vowel grade produces the following infinitives.

Present Active: τιθέναι, ἱέναι

Present Middle/Passive: τίθεσθαι, ἵεσθαι

Present Participles:

These follow expected patterns established previously. The present active are τιθείς, τιθεῖσα, τιθέν, with genitives of τιθέντος, τιθείσης, τιθέντος. The present active are ἱείς, ἱεῖσα, ἱέν, with genitives of ἱέντος, ἱείσης, ἱέντος. The middle/passive participles are τιθέμενος, τιθεμένη, τιθέμενον and ἱέμενος, ἱεμένη, ἱέμενον.

Present Subjunctive:

To form the subjunctive, the short grade of the linking vowel contracts with the usual subjunctive endings.

Present Active Subjunctive:

Present Middle/Passive Subjunctive:

Present Optative:

The optative is conjugated by adding an iota to the linking vowel, and using the aorist passive indicative endings for the active voice, and usual middle/passive endings for the middle/passive voice.

Present Optative Active:

Present Optative Middle/Passive:

Present Imperative:

In a pattern seen before, the second person singular active uses compensatory lengthening on the linking vowel while all other forms of the imperative use the short grade vowel with usual endings.

Present Active Imperative:

Present Middle/Passive Imperative:

In addition to the first principle part, some athematic verbs had an athematic third principle part. In this section, we’ll review one such athematic conjugation that governed the aorist active and middle tenses.

Like the present and imperfect athematic, this aorist active athematic uses vowel gradation, but with a twist. Instead of merely using two different vowels, it uses two different conjugation systems. The singular uses the long grade of the linking vowel in the stem, with personal endings of the first aorist conjugation. The plural uses the short grade of the linking vowel with the personal endings of the athematic second aorist conjugation, which happen to be the same as the athematic imperfect, just like the second aorist thematic uses imperfect endings. Because it uses two different conjugations, this is called the mixed aorist conjugation. It’s as if the mixed aorist conjugation is frozen in transition between the first and second aorist. The result is quite curious.

Aorist Active Indicative:

As you can see, there are actually two stems in use here. The singular uses the stem ἐδωκ- while the plural uses ἐδ-. The rest of the mixed aorist uses the short grade of the linking vowel, with the stem δ-, although not always with the usual expected endings.

Aorist Middle Indicative:

The second person singular uses the unexpected contracted ending -ου, taken from –οσο, but is otherwise quite predictable.

Aorist Infinitive:

The mixed aorist active infinitive ending is –έναι which contracts with the linking vowel. The middle infinitive ending is the same –σθαι.

Aorist active infinitive: δοῦναι

Aorist middle infinitive: δόσθαι

Aorist active and middle participles:

The pattern in forming athematic aorist participles is the same as present participles. The endings used are identical. The masculine and feminine nominative singulars use the long grade of the linking vowel with compensatory lengthening. All other forms take the short grade of the linking vowel.

Aorist imperative:

The mixed aorist imperative endings differ slightly from usual, as detailed below.

Aorist Active Imperative:

Aorist Middle Imperative:

Once again, the athematic shows why it had lost its popularity, by confusing speakers with its unpredictability. The second person singular aorist middle imperative has a dropped intervocalic sigma with a following omicron that contracts with the linking vowel. The result is mostly recognizable, but with some surprises.

Aorist Active Imperative:

Aorist Middle Imperative:

Aorist Subjunctive:

This is formed in a similar manner to the present subjunctive, taking the short grade of the linking vowel and contracting it to usual subjunctive endings. This includes even the exceptional contraction -ῳ- instead of -οι-.

Aorist Active Subjunctive:

Aorist Middle Subjunctive:

Aorist Optative:

The mixed aorist optative active uses the short vowel grade with an appended iota, followed by the same personal endings as the aorist passive. The aorist optative middle uses the usual endings, with an accent that never recedes beyond the syllable with the appended iota.

Aorist optative active:

Aorist optative middle:

We now turn our attention to another athematic conjugation – that of verbs with the linking vowel pairs omega and omicron. As I have mentioned, athematic verbs had become so rare by the Classical Age that there were only a handful of them, and even those that survived only did so in retaining some athematic principle parts, and not all. It would not be far outside of reason to assert that the vocabulary presented in this series may very well be all the athematic verbs for that conjugation. Indeed, outside of compounds, there is only one athematic verb in this conjugation.

δίδωμι, δώσω, ἔδωκα, δέδωκα, δέδομαι, ἐδόθην, give

Like the υ conjugation, it is only partially athematic. However, though it isn’t immediately apparent, there is more than just one athematic principle part. There are, in fact, two – the first and third. The rest are entirely thematic, treated the same way as you’re used to, and will not be reviewed here. We’ll treat the aorist athematic eventually, but let’s first to turn to something more familiar, and go over the verb forms derived from the first principle part.

Present Active Indicative:

This conjugation uses the same universal athematic endings previously mentioned. As is universal among athematic verbs, the singular indicatives uses the long grade of the linking vowel, which is omega, while the plural and all other verb forms uses the short grade of the linking vowel, which is omicron. This manifests in the following conjugation.

Imperfect Active Indicative:

Like the present, the imperfect active indicative uses the long grade of the linking vowel in the singular and short vowel grade in the plural. However, this vowel lengthening is produced not by turning an omicron into an omega, but by compensatory lengthening of omicron to ου. The endings used are the same universal athematic endings for athematic imperfects. This produces the following conjugation.

Present and Imperfect Middle/Passive Indicative:

These are produced with the short grade linking vowel and use the universal middle endings.

Present Middle/Passive Indicative:

Imperfect Middle/Passive Indicative:

Present Active and Middle/Passive Infinitive:

These use the same universal athematic endings on the short grade vowel.

Present Active Infinitive: διδόναι

Present Middle/Passive Infinitive: δίδοσθαι

Present Active and Middle Participles:

The present active participle of this conjugation uses the same universal athematic endings. Where it differs is that the nominative singular of the masculine and feminine uses the long vowel grade while all other forms use the short grade. The long vowel grade, like the imperfect, uses compensatory lengthening of omicron rather than direct lengthening to omega. The declension in the nominative and genitive singular is as follows.

The present middle/passive participle has the expected appearance as διδόμενος, διδομένη, διδόμενον.

Present Active and Middle/Passive Imperative:

These use the same universal endings with the short grade vowel. In a pattern replicating other athematic conjugations, the second person singular active alone uses the long grade of the vowel.

Present Active Imperative:

Present Middle/Passive Imperative:

Present Subjunctive:

This conjugation uses the short grade linking vowel that contracts with the usual subjunctive endings, except that the usual -οι- contraction instead yields -ῳ-.

Present Active Subjunctive:

Present Middle/Passive Subjunctive:

Present Optative:

The athematic optative for all conjugations, besides the upsilon, uses a similar scheme to the thematic optative in conjugation. It takes the short grade of the linking vowel and adds an iota, followed, in the active voice, by the same endings as the aorist passive indicative. These happen to be the same endings as the alternative ones for contracted verbs. The middle/passive voice endings are identical in every way to the thematic endings. Of strange note is that the accent in the athematic optative never recedes beyond the syllable containing the iota.

Present Active Optative:

Present Middle/Passive Optative:

You can by now begin to see why the athematic conjugation had all but disappeared by the Classical Age. Too many rules and too many exceptions to them made it next to impossible to remember them all, much less keep them straight in conversation. Unfortunately, because these are the most common verbs in the language, you will have to commit them to memory.

We have so far been dealing with inflection of thematic verbs. Each principle part had its own thematic vowel, which linked the verb stem with the appropriate ending. Ancient Greek also had another class of verbs called athematic verbs. Athematic verbs lacked any thematic vowel. Instead, the endings were added directly onto the verb stem. Each verb supplied its own linking vowel as part of the stem, which often underwent alterations depending on function. There were four athematic conjugations, one for each linking vowel, and so it will be necessary to learn the behavior of each individually, rather than learn one universal system as we did for thematic verbs.

The athematic is an older system of conjugation. By the Classical Age, nearly all Greek verbs had been converted to the thematic system, leaving only a few common verbs. Fortunately, this means that there is little vocabulary to learn. At the same time, they are some of the most common verbs of the language. If you run into an athematic verb in the lexicon, what you will see is something like this:

δείκνυμι, δείξω, ἔδειξα, δέδειχα, δέδειγμαι, ἐδείχθην, show

Only the first principle part has the unusual ending –μι, which identifies it as an athematic verb. All other principle parts have recognizable endings and so they function as ordinary thematic verbs. So at least for this conjugation, the υ conjugation, it will only be necessary to learn the verb forms related to the first principle part.

Present Active Indicative:

To conjugate the present active indicative of any athematic verb, take the stem of the first principle part, which here is δεικνυ-, and add the following personal endings, which differ somewhat from the thematic.

The conjugation of this verb in the present active indicative is as follows.

Take note of the upsilon. It is a long upsilon (ῡ) in the singular, and short upsilon (ῠ) in the plural. This is a typical pattern in athematic verbs. The singular indicative active uses the long grade of the linking vowel, and the plural indicative active, as well as all other verb forms, uses the short grade of the linking vowel. The only visible effect of this for the upsilon athematic conjugation is on accent, but you will see more dramatic effects in other conjugations.

Imperfect Active Indicative:

The endings of the athematic imperfect active indicative only differ from the thematic in the third person plural, which is -σαν. Like the present, the singular forms use the long vowel grade while the plural uses the short vowel grade.

Present and Imperfect Middle/Passive Indicative:

The endings of the middle voice are the same in the athematic as in the thematic, except that the second person singular does not contract by default, as there is no thematic vowel with which to contract. The middle and passive voice of athematic verbs always uses the short grade of the linking vowel.

Present Middle/Passive Indicative:

Imperfect Middle/Passive Indicative:

Present Active and Middle Infinitive:

The universal active infinitive ending for athematic verbs is –ναι. The middle infinitive ending is –σθαι. The short vowel grade is used to form the present infinitive.

Present active infinitive: δεικνύναι

Present middle/passive infinitive: δείκνυσθαι

Present Active Participle:

There is a universal set of active participle endings for athematic verbs. Like thematic active participles, they are regular first-third declension adjectives. Here is presented just the nominative and genitive singulars, from which all others can be derived.

Applied to δείκνυμι, this produces the following declension, just for the nominative and genitive singular. Note how the accent differs from the thematic.

Present middle/passive participle:

The endings of the middle participle are the same as the thematic. The present middle/passive participle of δείκνυμι is δεικνύμενος, δεικνυμένη, δεικνύμενον.

Present imperative:

The athematic imperative uses the same endings as the thematic, simply lacking in contracted endings or a thematic vowel.

Present Active Imperative:

I realize that the long upsilon in the second person singular breaks the rule of taking the short grade vowel in all other verb forms besides the singular indicatives. You'll just have to live with that.

Present Middle/Passive Imperative:

Present Subjunctive:

Athematic verbs use the same endings for the subjunctive as thematic verbs. They are simply tacked onto the stem, and use the short grade of the linking vowel.

Present Active Subjunctive:

Present Middle/Passive Subjunctive:

Present Optative: The optative is formed uniquely with each of the athematic conjugations, except for the upsilon conjugation. The upsilon conjugation has no unique optative, and instead replicates the optative from the present thematic optative, attaching endings directly to the stem.

Present Optative Active:

Present Optative Middle/Passive:

Vocabulary:

ἀπόλλυμι, ἀπολῶ, ἀπώλεσα (transitive)/ἀπωλόμην (intransitive), ἀπολωλεκα (transitive)/ἀπόλωλα (intransitive), --, --, lose, kill (active and transitive), die (middle and intransitive), “We are lost!” (middle intransitive)

ἄγνυμι, ἄξω, ἔαξα, ἔαγα, ἔαγμαι, ἐάγην, shatter, break (uses irregular augment ἐ- in aorist)

δείκνυμι, δείξω, ἔδειξα, δέδειχα, δέδειγμαι, ἐδείχθην, show

ἐπιδείκνυμι, ..., display, exhibit, show off

ἐπίδειξις, ἐπιδείξεως, ἡ, exhibition, display

ὄμνυμι, ὀμοῦμαι, ὤμοσα, ὠμώμοκα, --, ὠμώσθην, swear by (+ accusative)

πήγνυμι, πήξω, ἔπηξα, πέπηχα, --, ἐπήχθην, fix, fasten

ῥώννυμι, ῥώσω, ἔρρωσα, --, ἔρρωμαι, ἐρρώσθην, strengthen, (ἔρρωσο, the perfect middle imperative, literally means “be strong” but actually means “farewell,” and only used in letters)

EDIT: Made a mistake in entitling this lesson as XV, when it should be XXV.

An accented iota (-ί) may be suffixed to any demonstrative adjective to give it special emphasis. Such demonstratives may be translated as "this-here" or "that-there" or "this right here" or "that right there", although without any country bumpkin connotations. If a deictic iota is added to a demonstrative ending in a short vowel, that vowel is dropped. The demonstrative also loses all other accents besides the one on the deictic iota.

Examples:

ὁδί (<-- ὅδε)

αὑτηί (<-- αὕτη)

ἐκεινωνί (<-- ἐκείνων)

τουτί (<-- τοῦτο)

This is a largely regular first-second declension adjective, whose only irregularity is in the neuter nominative and accusative singular, where it ends in -ο rather than –ον. It has multiple meanings, as detailed below.

• When in the attributive position, it means “same.” Ex: ὁ αὐτὸς ἀνὴρ... (the same man)

• When in the predicative position, it intensifies the noun. In English, this would be expressed as himself, herself, itself, themselves, or the very. Ex: αὐτὸς ὁ ἀνὴρ... (the very man, the man himself)

Using αὐτός, αὐτή, αὐτό as a universal object pronoun, how to say “him, her, them”:

When used in any case other than nominative, this adjective can be used as a universal third person object pronoun. In such cases, it means “him”, “her,” “it,” “them”, depending on the gender and number.

Examples:

τῷ ἥρωϊ οὐ πολέμιος. αὐτὸν γὰρ ἀπἔκτεινεν.

The hero has no enemy. For he killed him.

οἱ τριακόσιοι Λακεδαιμόνιοι τοὺς Περσικοὺς ἐμαχέσαντο αὐτοὺς νικήσαντες.

The three hundred Spartans fought the Persians, defeating them.

Note that using it in the nominative gives it its intensive meaning. Example: αὐτὸς αὐτὸν ἀπἐκτεινεν. (He killed him himself.) If a subject pronoun is required (he, she, it, they), use a demonstrative adjective. Subject pronouns are usually not used except for emphasis, since the verb ending reveals the subject pronoun.

The negative adjective οὐδείς, οὐδεμία, οὐδέν, no one, nothing, none:

This adjective is a compound of οὐδέ + εἷς, μία, ἕν, literally meaning “not even one.” It means “no one,” “nothing,” or “none” depending on gender and number. It is declined the same as εἷς, μία, ἕν.

Example:

οὐδεὶς τὸν βίον ἄλλου ἔχει ἄνευ κράτους.

No one holds another’s life without force.

“You don’t know nothing!” How to use a double negative as a stronger positive:

In English, a double negative is properly considered a positive, despite popular use to the contrary. When a double negative is used as an intensive positive, it is considered bad form in English. In Greek, however, a double negative can be taken as an intense positive, and it is not considered bad form. When a simple negative is followed by a compound negative, it has the effect of making the statement an intensive positive. Take the following pairs.

οὐκ οὐδεὶς τὴν πόλιν νικήσει ποτέ.

No one at all will ever conquer the city. (Literally: Not no one will ever conquer the city.)

The simple negative οὐκ precedes the compound negative οὐδεὶς, thereby making the sentence an intensive positive by a double negative. Note below what happens when this order is reversed.

οὐδεὶς τὴν πόλιν οὐ νικήσει.

Someone will conquer the city. (Literally: No one will not conquer the city.)

Here, a compound negative (οὐδεὶς) precedes a simple negative (οὐ), so that the sentence is understood literally.

EDIT:

Fixed an accent error with ποτέ.

There is an adverb related to οὐδέ, which is μήδε. It is used in all situations which would call for μή instead οὐ. There is a similar alternative to οὐδείς, which is μηδείς, μηδεμία, μηδέν, which is used in all situations where μή is appropriate over οὐ.

The slightly irregular adjective ἄλλος, ἄλλη, ἄλλο, other

This adjective is a declined as a regular first-second declension adjective, except that the neuter nominative and accusative singular ends in –ο instead of –ον. It means “other” when referring to more than two objects. When referring to “the other” of a pair of objects, Greek uses ἕτερος, ἑτέρα, ἕτερον, which is a regular first-second declension adjective.

The reciprocal adjective ἀλλήλων, each other

To say “each other,” Greek uses this reduplication of ἄλλος, which exists only in the plural and has no nominative. The form given above is the genitive plural. Declension otherwise follows usual first-second declension patterns .

The adjective ἕκαστος, ἑκάστη, ἕκαστον, means “each”.

The adjective μέσος, μέση, μέσον, middle

This adjective can mean a simple middle or the center of something, but in both cases, agrees with the middle of what it describes in gender, number, and case. Usually, the meaning “middle of” puts it before the article.

Examples:

οὗτοι οἱ ἐν τῷ μέσῳ πεδίῳ συνήγαγον.

Those people gathered in the central field.

οὗτοι οἱ ἐν μέσῳ τῷ πεδίῳ συνήγαγον.

Those people gathered in the middle of the field.