In late prose, it is mandatory for the aorist to have a prefix or lengthened initial syllable called an augment.
It often has an infixed s (σ) or th (θ) sound (for active and passive voices, respectively), and it takes a particular set of endings.
In the grammatical terminology of classical Greek, the aorist is a tense, one of the seven divisions of the conjugation of a verb, found in all moods and voices.
By contrast, in Theoretical linguistics, tense refers to a form that specifies a point in time (past, present, or future), so in that sense the aorist is a tense-aspect combination.
[citation needed] Conversely, Hellenistic or Koine Greek was a blend of several dialects after the conquests of Alexander.
Compensatory lengthening affects first aorist forms whose verbal root ends in a sonorant (nasal or liquid: ν, μ, ρ, λ).
[3] In Attic and Ionic Greek (also in Doric, with some differences), the σ in the first aorist suffix causes compensatory lengthening of the vowel before the sonorant, producing a long vowel (α → η or ᾱ, ε → ει, ι → ῑ, ο → ου, υ → ῡ).
In Aeolic Greek (which contributes some forms to Homeric), the σ causes compensatory lengthening of the sonorant instead of the vowel, producing a double consonant (ν → νν, λ → λλ).
The present stem sometimes undergoes sound changes caused by a suffix — for instance, -ι̯- (IPA: /j/, English consonantal y).
A few verbs have passive aorists in both forms, usually with no distinction in meaning;[11] but ἐφάνην 'I appeared' is distinguished from ἐφάνθην 'I was shown'.
Like the second aorist, the stem is the bare root, and endings are similar to the imperfect in the indicative, and identical to the present in non-indicative moods.
Here the imperfect ἔπαιζε 'was playing' is the whole process of the game (which continues past these extracts); the aorists the individual steps.
On the other hand, if the entire action is expressed, not as a continuous action, but as a single undivided event, the aorist is used:[23] Herodotus introduces his story of Cyrus playing with: The aorist is also used when something is described as happening for some definite interval of time; this particular function can be more precisely called the temporal aorist: The other chief narrative use of the aorist is to express events before the time of the story:[27] It thus often translates an English or Latin pluperfect: the Greek pluperfect has the narrower function of expressing a state of affairs existing at the time of the story as the result of events before the time of the story.
[29] The empiric aorist states a fact of experience (ἐμπειρίᾱ empeiríā), and is modified by the adverbs meaning 'often', 'always', 'sometimes', 'already', 'not yet', 'never', etc.
A wish about the past that cannot be fulfilled is expressed by the aorist indicative with the particles εἴθε eíthe, or εἰ γάρ ei gár, 'if only'.
[38] The aorist indicative (less commonly the imperfect) with the modal particle ἄν án, Homeric κέ(ν) ké[n], may express past potentiality, probability, or necessity.
[46][47][48] Outside of indirect discourse, an aorist participle may express any time (past, present, or rarely future) relative to the main verb.
), the time (past, present, or future) of an aorist subjunctive, optative, or imperative is based on the function of the mood.