Lesson 1 | Present Indicatives
[1] Present Active Indicatives
Concept
I hope that you are as excited as I am to learn about indicative verbs. By far, indicative verbs are the most common verbs in the Greek NT:
Kind of Verb
Number in the Greek NT
Indicative
15,623
Participle
6,658
Infinitive
2,291
Subjunctive
1,869
Imperative
1,635
Optative
68
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Learning indicative verbs in this course will greatly expand your ability to read the Greek NT. Indeed, simply completing this lesson will do so. There are 5,531 present indicatives in the Greek NT!
In this step, you will learn about present active indicative verbs. Let’s take a look at a few:
λύω
[ present, active, indicative, first person, singular from λύω “I am untying” or “I untie” ]
- “Present” communicates the verb’s tense-form. Remember that, unlike English, Koine Greek verbs primarily communicate aspect and not time. Present verbs have imperfective aspect. However, since this verb is in the indicative mood, it communicates both aspect and time. So, we could say that this verb is a non-past imperfective. That’s why we normally translate λύω into English as “I am untying” instead of “I was untying” or “I had untied.”
- “Active” communicates the verb’s voice. With an active voice verb, the subject does the verb’s action. That’s why we translate λύω as “I am untying” instead of “I am being untied.”
- “Indicative” communicates the verb’s mood. When an author or speaker uses an indicative verb, he portrays the verb’s action as a reality. That’s why we translate λύω as “I am untying” instead of “I could be untying” or “I might be untying” or even “Go on untying!”¹
- “First Person” tells us how the speaker or author relates to the verb’s subject. Since this is a first person verb, the speaker is the verb’s subject. That’s why we translate this as “I am untying” instead of “You are untying” or “She is untying.”²
- “Singular” communicates the verb’s number. A verb’s number tells us how many are involved in the action: one person (singular) or more than one person (plural). Of course, that’s why we translate λύω as “I am untying” instead of “We are untying.”
- “λύω” in the parsing tells us the verb’s stem. The verb’s stem identifies the basic meaning of the word. As you learned in this lesson on participles in Greek II, the stem can change between tense-forms. Thus, paying attention to the verb’s stem often helps us parse the verb. Note: When you memorize a new verb, you are memorizing the verb in its present stem.
Within the Context of a Particular Verse
διὰ τί λύετε; Why are you untying? —Luke 19:31
Here we have another form of λύω, but notice how the ending changed from λύω to λύετε. This shift changes this verb from a first person singular (λύω – I am untying) into a second person plural (λύετε – You (pl.) are untying).
By this point, you might be noticing that Greek verbs change their form to encode different information. Each of the six parts of a Greek verb (tense-form, voice, mood, person, number, and lexical meaning) encodes its information in the verb-form. Our job, like a detective, is to look at each part of the verb to decipher the meaning.
Parsing Present Active Indicatives
To parse present active indicatives, we need to learn two pieces of information:
- The four key features of indicative verbs;
- The primary active endings.
As we did with participles and infinitives, we begin by learning key features of the present tense-form. Four key features compose present active indicatives.
Immediately, you should notice that present indicative verbs lack a tense-former. However, this lack of a tense-former actually helps us determine that this is a present tense-form.
Let’s look at some other present active indicatives:
λύω
ἀκούετε
λαμβάνει
λέγουσιν
Take a look at the ending of each verb.
Just like nouns follow patterns (the first, second, and third noun patterns), verb endings follow specific patterns too. So, let’s learn the Primary Active Verb Pattern for indicatives.
Learn these endings well! Memorizing this primary active verb pattern will allow you to parse almost any non-past (present, future, perfect) active indicative verb.
Practice
Examples from the Greek NT
διὰ τί μετὰ τῶν τελωνῶν καὶ ἁμαρτωλῶν ἐσθίει ὁ διδάσκαλος ὑμῶν Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? —Matthew 9:11
Let’s focus in on ἐσθίει by analyzing its four key features:
εσθι+ει
[Augment]
[Stem]
[Tense-Former]
[Ending]
The present stem and lack of both augment and tense-former tell us that this is a present tense-form from ἐσθίω. The ending tells us that this is an active, indicative, third person, singular form.
So, we can put that all together and parse ἐσθίει as a present, active, indicative, third person, singular from ἐσθίω. When we translate, we should try to communicate the verb’s aspect (imperfective) and time (present): “he is eating” or “he eats.”
καὶ ἀποστέλλουσιν αὐτῷ τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτῶν And they sent their disciples to him. —Matthew 22:16
ἀποστέλλουσιν is the main verb. Let’s analyze its four key features:
αποστελλ+ουσιν
[Augment]
[Stem]
[Tense-Former]
[Ending]
We have a present stem, no augment or tense-former, and a primary active ending. So, this verb is a present, active, indicative, third person, plural from ἀποστέλλω: “they send” or “they are sending.”
Translate this sentence into Greek: "He sends."
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Parsing Practice: Present Active Indicatives
Cheat Sheet: Indicative VerbspdfA printable cheat sheet containing all the paradigms you need to memorize for indicative verbs.
Cheat Sheet with BlankspdfIn this document, the Greek text has been removed from the above cheat sheet so you can fill it in for memory practice.