Imperfect Tense:
What used to be?
What was going on?
I said that we had (there was to us) a house ἦν ἡμῖν οἶκος
and that there was a park ἦν παράδεισος behind our house
καὶ ᾖμεν εἰς ἐκεῖνον τὸν παράδεισον καθ' ἡμέραν. (and we used to go to that park every day, unless it rained of course, not because we didn't want to, but because grandma was adamant: You'll catch your death in this weather!)
Here are the imperfect forms of the verbs
to be versus to go
to be versus to go
Remember The verb to go always has a iota in its stem,
Remember either pure, or as part of a diphthong
Remember (subscript iota is also a iota)
| used to be, was being | used to go, was going | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| I was | ἦν | ᾖα/ᾔειν | I went, was going |
| you (sg) were | ἦσθα | ᾔεις/ᾔεισθα | you (sg) were going |
| he/she/it was | ἦν | ᾔει | he/she/it was going |
| we were | ἦμεν | ᾖμεν | we were going |
| you were | ἦτε | ᾖτε | you were going |
| they were | ἦσαν | ᾖσαν/ᾔεσαν | they were going |
And here the contrasted imperfect forms of the 2 ἄπειμι:
1. to be absent (compound of εἰμί2. to go away (compound of εἶμι| I was absent or away | I used to leave or was going away | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| I was absent | ἀπ ῆν | ἀπ ῇͅα|ῄειν | I was leaving |
| you were away | ἀπ ῆσθα | ἀπ ῄεις | you were going away |
| he/she/it was absent | ἀπ ῆν | ἀπ ῄει | he/she/it was leaving |
| we were absent | ἀπ ῆμεν | ἀπ ῇμεν | we used to leave |
| you were all absent | ἀπ ῆτε | ἀπ ῇτε | you were all leaving |
| they were absent | ἀπ ῆσαν | ἀπ ῇσαν|ῄεσαν | They used to go away |
Do the same for πάρειμι 1. to be present and
Do the same for πάρειμι 2. to walk past
Click here for answer table.
Note:
In verbs the accent is usually recessive, i.e. it moves to the antepenult whenever it gets a chance:
ἄπειμι I'm absentt/ I shall go away.
But
ἀπῆν I was absent. (Not ἄπην)
ἀπῇα I was walking away. (Not ἄπῃα)
Why?
The accent cannot precede the past tense augment because we want to clearly stress the fact that we are talking "past time".