The conjugation of -μι verbs

Greek has two conjugations. Everything so far has been the -ω conjugation; this chapter is the other one, named for the fact that its lexical form ends in -μι.

It is small but unavoidable. Outside εἰμί — which is itself a -μι verb, and occurs 2,456 times — there are 90 such verbs in the New Testament, worth 1,743 occurrences between them. Four of those carry most of the weight.

What makes them different

One thing, and it is smaller than it looks: in the present, imperfect and second aorist, a -μι verb adds its endings straight to the stem, with no connecting vowel.

An -ω verb has λυ-ο-μεν. A -μι verb has δίδο-μεν. That is the difference, and everywhere else — future, first aorist, perfect, passive — they behave exactly like the verbs you already know.

So the whole irregularity is confined to three tenses of about ninety verbs, and the rest of the New Testament's -μι forms will look familiar.

Present reduplication

The second oddity, and it explains most of what looks strange in the present.

These verbs build their present stem by reduplicating with an iota, not an epsilon. So the verb stem δο- gives the present stem διδο-; θε- gives τιθε-; στα- gives ἱστα-.

Two of those need a word. τιθε- was θιθε- and lost its first aspirate, the deaspiration you met in chapter 10. ἱστα- was σιστα-, and the initial σ became the rough breathing — which is why the verb has one.

The stem also lengthens in the singular: διδο- becomes διδω-, τιθε- becomes τιθη-, ἱστα- becomes ἱστη-. That is where the -ωμι, -ημι of the lexical forms comes from.

δίδωμι in the present

Long vowel in the singular, short in the plural, no connecting vowel anywhere, and the first singular ending -μι that names the class.

And before you memorise it: only four of those six spellings occur in the New Testament at all. δίδωσιν is there 11 times, δίδωμι 9 and διδόασιν once; δίδοτε twice, though both of those are imperatives rather than the indicative this table prints. δίδως and δίδομεν never occur. Which is a hint about where the effort belongs.

ἐντολὴν καινὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους

"A new commandment I give you, that you love one another." Three chapters in one line: a -μι verb, an ἵνα clause with the subjunctive, and the reciprocal pronoun.

The aorist is where you actually meet them

Here is that hint spelled out: most of what you will read is not the present.

Of δίδωμι's 415 occurrences, the commonest single forms are ἔδωκεν (64), δοῦναι (33) and ἐδόθη (31) — an aorist indicative, an aorist infinitive and an aorist passive. The whole present active indicative comes to 21, and only three of its six slots are attested at all: δίδωμι nine times, δίδωσιν eleven and διδόασιν once.

So the pattern to fix in your memory is the aorist stem: δο-, θε-, στα-. A short stem with no reduplication and no σα is one of these verbs in the aorist, and that is what you will meet.

One oddity there. δίδωμι and τίθημι form their aorist with a κ instead of a σ — ἔδωκα, ἔθηκα — which makes them look perfect. They are not; there is no reduplication.

τίθημι and ἵστημι

τίθημι, "I put, place" (100 occurrences). Aorist ἔθηκεν, infinitive θεῖναι, participle θείς. Once you know the stem θε-, none of those is a surprise.

ἵστημι, "I set, stand" (153), is the difficult one, and not because of its forms. With this verb, which part of the paradigm you are in decides whether it takes an object. That is a fact about ἵστημι and not a rule about voice — whether a verb takes an object belongs to the verb, not to the ending. The first aorist active ἔστησεν is transitive — he set something up. Nothing else you are likely to meet is: the second aorist ἔστη, the twenty aorist passives like σταθείς, and the perfect ἕστηκα, which alone accounts for 65 of the 153.

You met that perfect in chapter 10 — "I have taken my stand", which in English is simply "I am standing". So the same verb, in two parts of its own paradigm, is doing two different things to the sentence around it. That is not a subtlety of emphasis; it decides who is acting on what.

ἀφίημι, and the compounds

ἀφίημι, "I forgive, leave, permit" (143), is ἀπό + ἵημι, so the augment goes inside the word exactly as chapter 8 said: ἀφῆκεν.

It is worth learning for its own sake, because it is the New Testament's ordinary word for forgiveness — ἀφεθήσεται, "it will be forgiven", occurs 12 times, and ἄφες, "forgive", is what the Lord's Prayer asks.

The compounds are where the rest of the conjugation lives, and they are all built on the four stems you now have: παραδίδωμι, "I hand over" (119) · ἀνίστημι, "I raise up, rise" (108) · ἀποδίδωμι, "I give back" (48) · ἐπιτίθημι, "I lay on" (39).

So learn four stems — δο- for δίδωμι, θε- for τίθημι, στα- for ἵστημι and ἑ- for ἀφίημι — and you can read about two thirds of the ninety verbs’ 1,743 occurrences off those four families and their compounds. The rest have to be met one at a time.

What to watch for

Short stem, no connecting vowel is the signal. If a verb looks a syllable too short, it is probably one of these.

The lexical form ends in -μι, so you cannot look it up under -ω. ἔδωκεν is listed under δίδωμι, and there is no δόω to find.

ἔδωκα and ἔθηκα are aorists, not perfects, despite the κ. The absence of reduplication is what tells you.

And ἵστημι changes meaning with its tense and voice. The first aorist active takes an object; the second aorist, the aorist passive and the perfect do not. That is not a subtlety; it is the difference between setting something up and standing there.