Imperfect Active Indicative. Imperfect Indicative of εἰμί. Accent of ἔστι(ν).

§122

In present time there is no special form of the verb in Greek to indicate continued action—there is no distinction in Greek between J loose and I am loosing. But in past time the distinction is made even more sharply than in English.

The tense which in the indicative is used as the simple past tense is called the aorist. It will be studied in Lesson XIV.

The tense which denotes continued action in past time is called the imperfect.

The aorist active indicative of λύω means I loosed, etc., whereas the imperfect active indicative means I was loosing, etc. This distinction should be carefully observed.

§123

The imperfect active indicative of λύω is as follows:

§124

The imperfect indicative, like the indicative of the other secondary tenses (see §20, footnote), places an augment at the beginning of the stem of the verb.

§125

In verbs that begin with a consonant the augment consists in an ἐ- prefixed to the stem.

Examples: ἔλυον, I was loosing; éyivwoxov, I was knowing.

§126

In verbs that begin with a vowel, the augment consists in the lengthening of that vowel. But α lengthens not to long α but to η.

Examples: The imperfect of éyelpw is ἤγειρον ; of ἀκούω, ἤκουον ; Of αἴρω, ἦρον.

§127

The personal endings in the active of the secondary tenses are as follows:

A table appears here in the book.

§128

The variable vowel (placed between the stem and the personal endings) is, in the imperfect as in the present, ο before μ and ν and ε before other letters.

§129

The third person singular, ἔλυε(ν), has the movable ν (under the conditions mentioned in §44).

§130

It will be observed that the first person singular and the third person plural are alike in form. Only the context can determine whether ἔλυον means I was loosing or they were loosing.

§131

In compound verbs (see §117), the augment comes after the preposition and before the stem. If the preposition ends with a vowel, that vowel is usually dropped both before a verb that begins with a vowel and before the augment.

Examples: The imperfect of ἀβάλλω is ἐξέβαλλον ; of ἀποκτείνω, ἀπέκτεινον ; of ἀπάγω, ἀπῆγον.

§132

It should be observed that the accent does not go back of the augment. Thus ἀπῆγον is correct, not ἄπηγον.

§133

The imperfect indicative of εἰμί is as follows:

§134

After οὐκ and certain other words the third person singular present indicative of εἰμί is accented on the first syllable. This does not apply to the other forms of εἰμί. Thus οὐκ ἔστιν, but οὔκ ἐσμεν, etc.