Mood

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There are four moods in Greek: indicative, subjunctive, optative, and imperative. In general, the indicative is used for simple statements presumed to be factual by the speaker. The subjunctive is used for less finite statement in the present or, by implication, future (the deliberative “what should I do?,” for instance, suggests an action in the future). The optative is used for unreal or less real statements, or for subordinate clauses in historical sequence (i.e. clauses introduced by past time verbs). Lastly, the imperative is used for 2nd person and 3rd person commands.

The indicative has absolute time: past, present, or future. The subjunctive, optative, and imperative have all the characteristics of indicative verbs except for time, which must be determined by the verb’s context in a sentence (future potential, present general, and so forth). The subjunctive uses non-past time personal markers and as such never refers to the past. Likewise, the imperative is not past time. The time of the optative depends on the grammatical construction in which it is used.

The Greek subjunctive was originally formed by raising the vowel grade of the connecting vowel from zero (athematic or alpha formation) to full grade (ε or ο) or from full grade (thematic ε or ο) to lengthened grade (η or ω). This is still the case in Homeric Greek. By the Classical Period, lengthened grade forms were used throughout, no matter whether the verb was originally thematic or athematic/alpha formation.

The subjunctive is never past time. Thus, it uses only non-past time personal markers. The aorist passive subjunctive uses the aorist passive marker with lengthened grade personal markers characteristic of the active (i.e. /θω, /θῃς, /θῃ, /θωμεν, /θητε, /θωσι).

The formation of the optative varies. As a general rule, it depends on whether the verb is thematic, in which case it uses the optative marker /οι/, athematic, in which case it uses the optative marker /ιη/ or simply /ι/, or alpha formation, in which case it standardly uses the optative marker /αι/. To the optative marker are added athematic past time personal markers. As discussed above, the use of past time personal markers does not mark the optative as a past time verb. Past time is a feature only of the indicative. Instead, the use of not past time personal markers is due to the pre-historical classification of them as primary, or basic.

The imperative may be progressive, aorist (more commonly), or perfect (rarely). It only appears in the 2nd person and 3rd person. The hortatory subjunctive is used for 1st person exhortations, and the subjunctive is also often used for a negative 2nd person command. In every case, the 2nd person plural imperative is equivalent in form to the corresponding 2nd person plural indicative, but without a past time marker if it is aorist. While there are patterns in the personal markers used in the imperative, discussed above, there are some irregularities in the 2nd person singular active that should be learned in the context of specific formations (notably /ε for thematic formations, /ον for the sigmatic aorist, and /θι for the athematic aorist).