Greek Tense

Tense

Introduction

“Tense” is an imprecise term that sometimes refers to time, sometimes aspect, and sometimes both time and aspect together. However, Greek marks time and aspect separately and treats them as distinct things. As a result, it is clearer and ultimately easier to talk about time and aspect rather than tense.

Intermediate

Instead of time and aspect, grammarians often use the term “tense” as if time and aspect are the same. Reading Morphologically doesn’t, because Greek marks time and aspect separately, and there is not always a single correspondence between any one aspect and any one time. For instance, while the aorist indicative is always past, the aorist subjunctive is not past, and the aorist optative may be future or past. So it is best to treat time and aspect separately.

The chart below explains what tenses mean in terms of time, aspect, and mood. The challenge of interpreting Greek this way should be evident.

Tense	Explanation in Terms of Time, Aspect, and Mood
Future	A future indicative, which marks neither progressive nor aorist aspect, or a morphologically future optative
Future perfect	A future time verb that also marks perfect aspect (mostly indicative)
Present	A present progressive indicative or any non-indicative progressive finite or non-finite verb form (subjunctive, optative, imperative; infinitive, participle), regardless of the time to which it refers in the context of the sentence
Imperfect	A past progressive indicative
Aorist	Any finite or non-finite aorist aspect verb form regardless of its actual or contextual time
Perfect	Any finite or non-finite perfect aspect verb form, except the future perfect and pluperfect, regardless of its actual or contextual time
Pluperfect	A past perfect indicative

In some cases, the term used for a tense is a time (the future, the present). In others, the term is an aspect (the aorist, the perfect). However, here “present” really means “progressive, except past progressive indicative,” requiring the creation of a new tense, the imperfect, to account for the past progressive indicative. Furthermore, “present” obscures the fact that the perfect is also present. Perhaps the biggest difficulty is that, at least in practice, in contrast to future and present, the aorist is often presumed to mean past time. Students may then be confused when encountering the aorist subjunctive and aorist imperative, which are not past time, and the aorist optative, which may refer to future or past time, depending on the construction.

In contrast, the chart below explains aspect, time, and mood when traditional terms for tense are not used. It is noticeably simpler and avoids presumptions about time-aspect correspondence.

Aspect	Explanation in Terms of Time and Mood
Future (correctly a time, not an aspect)	The future proper has no aspect (though see below for the future perfect). It may be indicative or (rarely) optative. There is no future subjunctive or imperative.
Progressive	In the indicative, the progressive aspect may be present or past. The progressive subjunctive and imperative are not past time. The time of the progressive optative depends on the construction.
Aorist	In the indicative, the aorist is only used in the past.¹ The aorist subjunctive and imperative are not past time. The time of the aorist optative depends on the construction.
Perfect	In the indicative, the perfect may be future (rare), present, or past (rare). The perfect subjunctive and imperative are not past time. The time of the perfect optative depends on the construction.

¹ The “gnomic aorist” used for statements of general truth is morphologically past but may be translated as a present.