Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

Any boardboard attendees conversant with Greek grammar? I came across this guide and have been trying to get my head around the distinction between 1st aorist, 2nd aorist and just plain aorist. Everything else seems to be clear enough, but the moods are putting a spin on things I'm just not catching on to, it seems. Any assistance would be appreciated.

It doesn't help much that one of the terms I'm interested is the imperative of 'to fall' which I keep getting as ptosis, which links to every grammer page invented due to the ptosis aitiatike, kletike ptosis and dotike ptosis being the origins of the accusative, vocative, and dative cases. sigh.

My Greek is a bit rusty, but I'll do my best to help.

The only difference between 1st aorist and 2nd aorist is the way they're formed. 1st aorist are regular verbs--verbs like krino, which just add the e at the beginning and use the a, as, etc., endings. 2nd aorist verbs have *irregular* stems--leipo becomes elipov, elipes, etc. (Wow, those look funny with Roman letters, but hopefully you follow.) You'll never find 1st aorist endings on a 2nd aorist verb, or vise-versa. There is no difference in meaning between 1st aorist and 2nd aorist; in the indicative mood they're both roughly equivalent to a simple past.

I'd love to spend more time on this, but unfortunately I have to leave town in half an hour and I'm not finished packing. Let me know if that helps; if not maybe someone else can fill in or I'll try again when I have internet again next week. Good luck with your Greek studying!

I thought about this more on the drive: To state it a bit differently, I think the problem you're having is one of form vs. function. 1st aorist/2nd aorist is a form issue. The difficulties with mood have to do with function. On the guide you linked to, there's a column (very confusingly) labeled just "aorist passive." I'm almost certain that should be "1st aorist passive." (I'm suspicious of that guide, anyway, because it says it's for "Ancient Greek" -- a very ambiguous term. The New Testament, for instance, is written in Koine Greek, which is very different from the Classical Greek of Homer. That guide seems to be for Koine Greek, but if you're really wanting to learn Koine, I highly recommend picking up a copy of J. Gresham Machen's New Testament Greek for Beginners.)

I started trying to address your last paragraph about ptosis and found a few more difficulties you might be having. For starters, ptosis is a noun, "a fall." The verb "pipto" means "to fall," and is ridiculously irregular. You know how I said that 1st aorist verbs never take 2nd aorist endings, and vice-versa? ... Pipto is the exception. The aorist can be formed *either* epeson (1st aorist) *or* epesa (2nd aorist). I had forgotten that until I looked it up just now, and I find it terribly irksome, but it's the truth.

Well. Thanks for giving me an excuse to pull out my Greek books. Let me know if I can help more.

Aye, that would pretty much sum up what I was running into. You, my friend, are a god-send.

As my Greek professor would say, it warms the cockles of my heart to be able to help.