Imperfect Tense:
What used to be?

 
What did we use to do in the past?

When I was a child

ἦν  ἡμῖν κῆπος. (there was to us = we had)
ἡ μὲν μήτηρ ἄνθη ἔφυε. (grew flowers)
ἐγὼ δὲ ἔσκαπτον τὴν γῆν.
αἱ δὲ ἀδελφαὶ ἔπαιζον.
ὄπισθεν τῆς οἰκίας ἦν παράδεισος (there was a park)
πολλάκις τὸν κύνα εἰς τὸν παράδεισον ἤγομεν.
ἀλλὰ οὐδένας λαγὼς ἐδιώκομεν. ἐβαδίζομεν μόνον. (only)
αἱ ἀδελφαὶ ἄνθη ᾖρον, ὁ δὲ κύων λίθους ᾖρε καὶ ἔφερέ μοι.
And you? What did you do often/repeatedly?   τί ἔπραττες;
And what did you and your family/friends use to do?   τί ἐπράττετε;
 
To talk about things that used to be in the past we also use the imperfect.
Imperfect for action in progress: it was going on
Imperfect for actions that happened repeatedly
 

Imperfect Tense Forms

Compare:  ἄγομεν  We are leading
Compare:  ἠγομεν  We were leading/used to lead
Compare:  αἴρετε  You are lifting, picking up
Compare:  ᾔρετε  You were picking up/used to pick up
Compare:  ἐθέλομεν  We are wishing/often wish
Compare:  ἠθέλομεν  We were wishing up/often wished

Augment

Past tense marker:
syllabic augment: If the verb starts with a consonant an  ἐ is added to the front of the verb, making this an extra one-letter-syllable augment.

temporal augment: If the verb starts with a vowel this vowel is lengthened to show that we are now not talking about the present, but about the past. The stem is augmented (made bigger, longer) by making the initial sound longer to indicate past time (temporal comes from Latin tempus, temporis meaning time)

 
How do we lengthen a vowel? According to what rules?
  • omega ω and eta η, being long already anyway, won't change.
    No noticable augment! Luckily we don't rely on the augment alone to know whether we are talking past, the endings also help, usually. If not, there is always the general context to consider. That is why we always know when Homer (and a few other Greek authors) refer to the past, even when they don't use augments. Context does [most] always tell.
  • short ῐ and short ῠ just lengthen their sound to ῑ and ῡ (you'll hear the difference quite clearly)
  • Leaves alpha α, epsilon ε and omicron ο.
    • Both α and ε change to η (though in some rare cases ε lengthens into the diphthong ει. )
    • omicron ο changes to omega ω.
End of story.
End of story? What happens to diphthongs? Nothing much, it is the initial vowel that changes, nothing else. Except...
A long vowel iota diphthong isn't a real diphthong anymore (difficult to pronounce!) so the iota sound has a tendency to disappear totally and the iota becomes subscript
to show that it is there, even if unnoticed by the ear:
ῃ and ῳ
 
Odd men out: to have, to hold  ἔχω   lengthens to  εἶχον 
Odd men out: to drag, to hold  ἕλκω  lengthens to  εἷλκον 
 
 
Exercise 4: Try the following:
Exercise 4. Click here for verification.

ἀκούω  We all listen 
 We used to listen   		    ἀκούομεν 
   ἠκούομεν  
ἕλκω   We often dragged 
 You often drag 		    ____________________
   ____________________
   ____________________
   ____________________
   ____________________
   ____________________
   ____________________
   ____________________
   ____________________
   ____________________
οἰκτίρω   We used to pity 
 You often pitied 
ᾄδω   Now you're always singing 
 you didn't use to sing 
ἐσθίω   You used to eat 
αὐξάνω   We always increased  
ἡσυχάζω    You often remained quiet
 You don't remain quiet now  
 
Check-up

  1. Give 2 possible translations for: ἠσθίομεν
    How do we know that the eating is not taking place now?
  2. Give 4 possible translations of: ἔγραφον
    Why 4 and not 2 like for ἐγράφομεν ?
  3. ἄγομεν versus ἤγομεν 
    difference in meaning?
    difference in form?
  4. What about ἄγεις versus ἦγες 
    i. difference in meaning?
    ii. difference in form?
  5. Translate: [but not the words in square brackets]
       I didn't use to drag [my feet as a child]
       She used to sing a lot [when she was young]
       He was increasing [his livestock every year]
       They used to rest (=remain quiet) [under a tree during the heat of midday]
       Theseus was pitying his companions and was willing to help them.
       He often picked up stones [poor Dikaiopolis had his fields littered with them].
  6. Which words did you have to look up in a dictionary?



to be

To be or not to be
εἶναι ἢ μὴ εἶναι

I said that we had (there was to us) a house and that there was a park behind our house. Obviously the verb 'to be' is irregular, yet again. Click here for the forms:
 
 
 
 
 

 
 Note 

A long vowel iota diphthong isn't a real diphthong anymore (difficult to pronounce!) so the iota sound has a tendency to disappear totally and the iota becomes subscript: to show that it is there, even if unnoticed by the ear:
ᾱͅ, ῃ and ῳ