Lesson 2 | Imperfect Indicatives
[2] Imperfect Middle/Passive Indicatives
Like present indicatives, imperfect indicatives have the same form for middle and passive voice verbs.
Only one of the four key features differs between imperfect active and imperfect middle or passive verbs: the ending pattern. Thus, the only new content we need to learn in this grammar point is the secondary middle-passive ending pattern, added in a fourth (and final!) column to our indicative ending patterns chart.
If you feel overwhelmed by these indicative verb patterns, take heart! Once you learn these four verb patterns, you will know the endings for every other tense-form of indicative verbs!
Also, notice where the secondary middle-passive ending pattern parallels the primary middle-passive ending pattern. The endings for the first person plural (-ομεθα) and second person plural (-εσθε) forms are the same. So, you need to learn only four new endings.
Practice
Examples from the Greek NT
καὶ ἤρχοντο πρὸς αὐτὸν πάντοθεν And they were coming to him from everywhere. —Mark 1:45
Let’s take a closer look at ἤρχοντο:
ε+ερχ+οντο
[Augment]
[Stem]
[Tense-Former]
[Ending]
With the augment, the present stem, no tense-former, and the secondary middle-passive verb pattern, we can parse this as an imperfect, middle, indicative, third person, plural from ἔρχομαι. To communicate the imperfective aspect and past time, we could translate this as “they were coming.” Mark describes the crowds streaming to Jesus from all around even as he sought refuge in deserted places.
κἀκεῖ προσηύχετο. And he was praying there. —Mark 1:35
Let’s look at προσηύχετο:
ε+προσευχ+ετο
[Augment]
[Stem]
[Tense-Former]
[Ending]
Once again, we have a preposition attached to the verb stem. So, we look to the initial letter of the verb stem after the preposition. There, we see that the ε augment lengthened the initial ε of the base stem in προσεύχ to η, giving us προσηύχ.
The four key features help us parse προσηύχετο as an (aspect), (voice), (mood), (person), (number) from (lexical form).
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Οἱ μὲν οὖν ἐπορεύοντο χαίροντες ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ συνεδρίου, ὅτι κατηξιώθησαν ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος ἀτιμασθῆναι, Then, they were going from before the Sanhedrin rejoicing, because they were considered worthy to be dishonored for the name. —Acts 5:41
Note the participle and the infinitive. Before we look at the imperfect indicative, let’s make sure that you can parse these:
- χαίροντες has a present stem (χαίρ), a present (imperfective) active participle tense former (οντ), and a third pattern ending (ες).
So, we can parse χαίροντες as a (aspect), (voice), participle, (case), (gender), (number) from (lexical form).
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The imperfective aspect means that the participle’s action happens during the action of the main verb: “they were going out rejoicing.”
- ἀτιμασθῆναι is a bit more difficult. However, you should recognize θηναι as the tense-former for aorist (perfective) passive infinitives (as taught here). So, we know that we have an aorist passive infinitive. But what’s the actual verb? ἀτιμάζω. The ζ in ἀτιμάζω becomes a σ: ατιμαζ+θηναι = ἀτιμασθῆναι. So, we can parse ἀτιμασθῆναι as an aorist passive infinitive: “to be dishonored.”
Now, let’s focus on ἐπορεύοντο:
ε+πορευ+οντο
[Augment]
[Stem]
[Tense-Former]
[Ending]
With these four key features, we can parse ἐπορεύοντο as an (aspect), (voice), (mood), (person), (number) from (lexical form): “they were going.”
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Parsing Practice: Imperfect Middle/Passive Indicatives
Now that we learned the four key features for imperfect middle or passive indicatives and looked at a few examples, let’s practice parsing. Most of the verbs in the following quizlet are imperfect, middle or passive, indicatives. However, there may be a few surprises in there as well. Read carefully!