PRINCIPAL PARTS
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The principal parts of a verb
are all of the inflected forms of a verb from which all other inflected
forms are derived. The principal parts list of a given verb provides the
basic building blocks for its various conjugations. For example, in English
the principal parts of a verb consist of the the present tense, past
tense, and past participle, as in the table below. Sometimes the present
participle (the "-ing" form) is considered a fourth principal
part.
From these principal parts, all of the ways a verb is used may be constructed. So, for example, the future of go can be created by adding the auxiliary verb will to the present tense form: will go. The future perfect is created by adding the auxiliaries will and have to the past participle form: will have gone. The past perfect adds the auxiliary had to the past participle: had gone. And so on... In Greek there are six principal parts. Don't let this intimidate you. In certain respects the Greek verb is less complicated than English, because you won't have to bother with so many composite tenses that are formed by confusing combinations of auxiliary verbs. Here are the six principal parts in Greek, using the verb sw|,zw as an example:
After completing this module you will have already learned two of the six principal parts: the present and future. A helpful principal part chart appears in Appendix 9 of Black's text (Learn, 222-24). |
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