Future tense

The Future Tense verb is used to indicate an action which will occur in the future and has the following features:
 * Unlike other verbs in other tense forms which are more concerned about indicating the aspect of the action, the future tense form is more focused on indicating the time dimension.
 * Grammars seem to differ on what aspect the future tense carries, if at all. It can be said to be perfective aspect, but obviously this cannot mean that the action is completed (perfected). It does mean, however, that the action is viewed externally, as a complete or entire whole, without comment on it as a process.

A verb in the future form is common in many European languages. Some linguists argue that English doesn't have a proper future tense. We indicate a future event with extra words such as "will" or "shall". In the same way, when encountering a Greek verb in the future tense, this will usually be translated by tacking on will or shall.

Formation of the Future
A verb in the future tense is formed from the present tense stem with a tense formative, a connecting vowel and primary personal endings. The tense formative in this case is σ (with a special case needing εσ for liquid verbs).

The future tense is listed as the 2nd word in the 6 principal parts of Greek verbs.

The future tense is constructed from the future tense stem + tense formative σ + connecting vowel (ο or ε) + primary personal ending.

Patterns of Future tense formation
Because the lexical form of a verb is the present tense indicative 1st person singular, this is often the start point for people when trying to recognise a future tense verb. This could create pitfalls because sometimes the present tense stem is different from the future tense stem. Mounce recommends that students also learn the root of the verb. The root is the most basic part of the word. The present tense stem is derived from the root (sometimes with some transformation). The future tense stem is typically derived from the root with no change. The root can thus be easily visible in the future tense verb.

Because the present tense stem can be different, Mounce organises the types of future tense into 4 patterns:


 * future tense pattern 1 - where the root, the present tense stem and the future tense stem are the same. This is a large group of verbs. The present and future tense verbs of the same root are very similar except for the tense formative.


 * future tense pattern 2 - where the present tense stem and future tense stem are derived from completely different roots (verbs of type v-8 in MBG). The present tense and future tense verbs are very different. According to Mounce, there are only 9 pairs of such verbs and these are very common so it is worthwhile to simply memorise the pairs.


 * future tense pattern 3 - this is the category of liquid futures (verbs of type v-1c in MBG). The root/verb stem ends with a liquid consonant λ, μ, ν, or ρ. For such stems, a different tense formative εσ is used. The present tense derives from the root occasionally with some change. The future stem derives from the root directly. Thus the present and future tense verbs look slightly different from each other.


 * future tense pattern 4 - here the present tense derives from the root with a change according to some regular pattern. The future stem derives from the root directly. Thus the present and future tense verbs look slightly different from each other. Mounce considers pattern 3 to be really a sub type of pattern 4 but separates them out because most teachers and textbooks will treat liquid futures as a special category of their own.

Future Active paradigm
Example paradigm for λύω (loose, destroy). The connecting vowel is shown in red and the personal ending is shown in green. The next column shows the Present tense active indicative for comparison.