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lesson 3 index     printable pages   

 3.2:  Tenses.  Present and Future

In the Indicative mood there are, of course, several tenses.  In this lesson we study the Future.  There is no Future Imperative, since a command or a request must relate to a later time.  So the task at hand is rather simple.  Let us consider, as we have been doing so far, a regular verb.  To obtain the Future stem we add to the Present stem the mark -σ- .  That is to say that the formula for a regular future is:

present stem +  σ + personal endings.

The Future takes the same endings as the Present. So the contrast between Present and Future of a regular verb such as λούω (to wash) is:  

Simple enough...but if the present stem of the verb ends in a consonant, some phonetic changes occur when that consonant encounters  σ.  Before you continue, look up the classification of the consonants in 0.2.2, page 3, to refresh the classification of  types "stops" into labial, dental, and palatal.  Here I will present only the consequences resulting from the combination of a dental +  σ.  They can actually be formulated once for all of them, and what is more, these phonetic changes will take place not only in the future of a verb, but whenever a dental encounters σ.

A dental consonant is dropped before  σ.  

Dentals are:  τ  (tau),  δ (delta), θ (theta), the double consonant ζ  (zeta). and the nasal dental ν (nu)

Let us try this with the verb  πείθω (to persuade).  Since θ  is dropped, its future sounds just like that of  λούω , above:

πείσω, πείσεις, πείσει, πείσομεν, πείσετε, πείσουσι(ν) 

EXAMPLES: 

a) ὁ  λόγος  οὐ   παύσει τὸν πόλεμον

                   S                               V                    D O

Reason will not stop war.

b)  τοὺς μὲν κακοὺς  πείσουσιν  οἱ κακοί,   τοὺς δὲ ἀγαθοὺς  οὔ.¹

          ..................  D O  .............                       V                        S                .................    D O   .................

Evil men, on the one hand, will persuade the evil (men); on the other hand, they (will not persuade) the good men.

We find here two correlatives: μέν ... δέ.²  (This is totally independent from the fact that the verb is a future in this sentence.)  They serve to either connect or contrast two parallel elements in a sentence, sometimes two sentences, or even two paragraphs.  We may translate as above, or simply say: "Evil men will persuade evil men, but they (will not persuade) the good men."  

Note 1:  Both subject  (οἱ κακοί) and  verb (πείσουσιν) are implicit in the second part 

Note 2: We will learn later that these particles, and many others, can only take the second position in the group of words to which they belong.  The term "particle" means, of course, a small portion of a word....  Particles may have been originally adverbs.