Imperfect tense

The Imperfect Tense has the following features:
 * It only occurs in the indicative
 * It indicates imperfective aspect, an ongoing action seen as a process usually in the past

Uses of the Imperfect
The imperfect tense is used for example to describe an action, seen as a process, which was unfolding in the past. This n be done, for example to set the scene for subsequent events, e.g. "The parade was marching by when...." This usage is also found in other European languages such as in Spanish which has an imperfect.

There's a whole set of jargon to describe the various uses of the imperfect:


 * Progressive imperfect - a process taking place in the past ("he was eating"). Also called "descriptive imperfect".
 * Ingressive imperfect - a process which began to take place in the past ("the parade started"). Also called "inchoative" or "inceptive".
 * Iterative imperfect - a repeated action in the past ("he kept trying")
 * Customary imperfect - a habitual action in the past ("he used to...."). Also called "general" or "lifestyle" imperfect.
 * Conative imperfect - something a person wanted to do ("he wanted to....", "he tried to"). Also called "voluntative" or "tendential".

Formation of the Imperfect
A verb in the imperfect tense is formed from the present tense stem with an augment, a connecting vowel and secondary personal endings. Note there is no tense formative.

Because the imperfect is formed from the present tense stem, it is not listed separately by lexicons which list the 6 principal parts of Greek verbs.

Present tense stem
To get the present tense stem, remove the present tense primary ending and connecting vowel.

Secondary active endings
Secondary endings are used for secondary tenses: imperfect, aorist and pluperfect. All typically refer to past time.

Connecting vowel
The connecting vowel is the same as for the Present Indicative tense
 * ο before μ and ν
 * ε before everything else

Augment
The augment is tacked to the beginning of the stem and only occur in the indicative mood. The augment and the secondary ending go together and their presence of both in an indicative verb typically indicates past time.


 * verbs beginning with a consonant: add ε
 * verbs beginning with a vowel: lengthen initial vowel
 * α becomes η
 * ε becomes η
 * ο becomes ω
 * other vowels no change
 * diphthongs: lengthen initial vowel as above but superscript the ι
 * αι becomes ῃ
 * ει becomes ῃ
 * οι becomes ῳ

Imperfect Active Indicative 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.