Greek for Bible Readers

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Greek, unlike English, is a highly inflected language. Inflection refers to the changes that words undergo in accordance with their grammatical function in a sentence. Verbs in Greek consist of two basic parts: a stem, which contains the dictionary meaning of the word, and one or more affixes, which indicate the function of the word in the particular sentence where it occurs. An affix added to the beginning of a word is called a prefix, one that is added within a word is called an infix, and one that is added to the end of a word is called a suffix. English verbs such as “break” are illustrative: “break-” is the present stem, and by adding the third person singular suffix, we get “breaks.” “Brok-” is the past stem, and “broken” is the part participle.

Notice, however, the forms for the English verb “have” and their German and Spanish equivalents (see chart).

Here English makes use of independent pronouns alone to indicate person and number (“I,” “you,” “we,” etc.), except in the third person singular (where “have” becomes “has”). But what English does in only one of its six forms, other languages can do in each of the six forms by means of inflection. German, like English, uses personal pronouns with the verb, but has five different inflections of the verb.

Spanish uses six different verb forms, but the pronouns, shown here in parentheses, are optional elements used only for emphasis. In Spanish, therefore, “I have” is simply tengo, “we have” is tenemos and so forth.

Greek is more like Spanish in that a different form of the verb is used to indicate both person and number. This is accomplished by affixing person-number suffixes to the verb stem. This stem is called the lexical morpheme since is conveys the word’s lexical, or dictionary, meaning. Thus the Greek word for “I have,” e]cw (echoµ), consists of the lexical morpheme ejc– (meaning “have”) plus the person-number suffix –w (meaning “I”). If the various suffixes of the present tense are now added to this stem, we get the following forms:

These suffixes are also used in many other verbs. When the same pattern of suffixes is used by several words, that pattern is called a paradigm (from paravdeigma, meaning “pattern.”)

Notice that each form of e]cw given above makes an affirmation. In Greek an affirmation is said to be in the indicative mood. The term “mood” comes from the Latin modus, meaning “measure” or “manner.” Mood refers to the manner in which the speaker relates the verbal idea to reality. The indicative mood indicates that the speaker affirms the factuality of the statement (as in “I have mercy”). Greek has other moods as well: A verb can express a command (the imperative mood: “Lord, have mercy”); it can express contingency (the subjunctive mood: “though he have mercy”); and it can express a verbal idea without limiting it by specifying person and number (the infinitive mood: “to have mercy is better than to offer sacrifices”). These four moods—indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and infinitive—are the ones most frequently encountered in the New Testament. The optative mood, which generally expresses a polite request (“may he have mercy”), is not widely used. It should be emphasized that the speaker’s choice of mood does not necessarily correspond to objective reality. The speaker may be deliberately masking the real mood or even be lying. When, for example, Peter was asked whether he was a disciple of Jesus, he replied “I am not” (John 18:17). Here the indicative mood refers only to purported reality, since Peter was, of course, a disciple.

In addition to mood, Greek verbs are also said to express voice. Voice refers to the way in which the speaker chooses to relate the grammatical subject of a verb to the action of that verb. A verb is said to be in the active voice when the subject is presented as performing the action, as in “I hear a man” (ajkouvw a]nqrwpon, akouoµ anthroµpon). Here ajkouvw (“I hear”) is an active verb since the subject of the verb is doing the hearing rather than is being heard. There are two other voices in Greek: the passive and the middle. In the passive voice the subject is pictured as being acted upon (for example, “I am being heard”). In the middle voice the subject is pictured as acting in its own interest (for example, “I am hearing myself”). Both by frequency and emphasis the active is the normal voice in Greek. It highlights the action of the verb, whereas the middle and passive highlight the grammatical subject.

In our next column, we will complete this overview by considering Greek verb tenses and aspects.

This column is an adaptation of the author’s Learn to Read New Testament Greek (Nashville: Broadman, forthcoming). It is used with the permission of the publishers.

Greek, unlike English, is a highly inflected language. Inflection refers to the changes that words undergo in accordance with their grammatical function in a sentence. Verbs in Greek consist of two basic parts: a stem, which contains the dictionary meaning of the word, and one or more affixes, which indicate the function of the word in the particular sentence where it occurs. An affix added to the beginning of a word is called a prefix, one that is added within a word is called an infix, and one that is added to the end of a word is called […]