Contract verbs

Contract verbs are verbs with roots ending with α, ε, or ο. When a verb is formed, the connecting vowel and personal endings come into contact with the root ending. And since too many vowels do not like to be together, they contract to form other vowels or diphthongs.

All the possible contractions can be memorized as a table with some 63 cells. Alternatively, Mounce describes 8 rules for vowel contraction which are useful in working backwards from the resulting verb to figure out the root, the connecting vowel and the personal ending. This allows most of the commonly occuring cells to be filled. Rules 1 to 5 are most frequently encountered:


 * Rule 1: ου replaces οε, εο, οο (ο overpowers ultimately each)
 * Rule 2: εε becomes ει (each and every becomes each individual)
 * Rule 3: ω replaces any combination of ο ω with any other vowel unless Rule 1 kicked in (omega always wins unless overcome)
 * Rule 4: α replaces ε. ᾳ replaces αει (air is replacing aero - who says aeroplane these days?)
 * Rule 5: η replaces εα. ῃ replaces εαι (Ears elongate i the end)
 * Since connecting vowels are ο and ε, Rule 5 only kicks in under special circumstances e.g. when an intervocalic σ two vowels is dropped. It also illustrates a multistage process of contraction as seen below. ποιεσαι to ποιηι takes 3 steps:
 * ποιεσαι to ποιεαι (drop intervocalic σ)
 * ποιεαι to ποιηι (Rule 5)
 * ποιηι to ποιῇ (Rule 5 again)