Notes On Koine Greek: Part 37

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1. Aoristic Formation: The Aorist has two ways of forming (present to aorist examples are used
here). (*Note: Beware of amalgamation taking place as some of the aorist person-number suffix
morphemes may appear unusual! See the previous set of notes for more on this.) Here are some
English & Greek examples to help understand aoristic formation:
English Greek
Present: I laugh Present: I run Present: luw Present: leipomen
nd
Past: I laughed Past: I ran Aorist: elusa 2 Aorist: elipomen

Suffix Infix Prefix Suffix Prefix + Infix

*Notice how the first set of words morph with an outer *Notice that while the aorist (a.k.a. 1st Aorist) morphs from the
affix (e.g. suffix) whereas the second set morph with an present with a prefix (past time morpheme) and suffix (person-
infix! The same sort of thing can take place in Greek in number suffix morpheme), the 2nd aorist not only takes on the past
the formation of the Aorist. See the examples
time morpheme (prefix) but the internal “ei” also morphs to “i”.

2. Principal Parts: Since we have now confronted 3 of the 6 principle parts of Koine Greek, it
will be beneficial to go ahead and point them all out and to begin familiarizing ourselves with
them. Here’s a visual device that I created and which I use to recall the 6 principle parts. Notice
that the chart is divided by voice & tense and that the sister principle parts are color-coated so as to
match one another. More will be said about principle parts (e.g. how verbs form in middle, active
& passive voices) later and more examples given.
6 Principle Parts Table
(Indicative mood)
PP3 PP5 PP1 PP2
Middle Voice
1st or 2nd Perfect Present Future
Aorist Middle Middle Middle
Middle

PP3 PP4 PP1 PP2

Active Voice
1st or 2nd Perfect Present Future
Aorist Active Active Active
Active

PP6 PP5 PP1 PP6

Passive Voice
Aorist Perfect Present Aorist
Passive Passive Passive Passive

© 2009, T. Michael W. Halcomb Tenses