New Testament Greek for Beginners

(Based on the book with the same title by Gresham Machen, The MacMillan Company, 1923)

References

159. The Greek verb is for the most part exceedingly regular in deriving the individual forms indicating voice, mood, person and number from the basal tense stems. But the formation of those basal tense stems from the stem of the verb (and still more from the present stem) is often exceedingly irregular. The basal tense stems, from which all the rest of the verb is formed, are six in number. These six, given with the personal ending for the first person singular indicative, are called the principal parts. So far, only two of the six principal parts of λύω have been learned. From the first of the principal parts, λύω, all of the present and imperfect in all three voices is formed; from the second, λύσω, all of the future active and middle. The present and imperfect together form the present system; the future active and middle form the future system.