The stem of the verb carries what we call ‘the absolute essential meaning’. Remember, what I have told you at the previous issue? You do not need to master at this stage the inflectional forms to communicate. A stem form combined with an inflectional ending will somehow communicate (in a functional way) your message. For example, if you say ‘ Ο Γιάννης παίζω μπάλα’[ John play-I ball] although you haven’t used the correct inflectional ending (i.e. παίζει [plays]) one can understand that ‘παίζω’ refers to John even though ‘παίζω’ is incorrect as it refers to the first person singular (i.e. ‘I’). 

 

Nonetheless, it’s important to be familiar with what those inflectional forms, which go after the stem of the verb, convey.

 

One of the things you can identify with a verb ending in the Greek language is the person (i.e. who are we referring to? You, he, they etc.). For instance, in the sentence ‘Γράφει ένα γράμμα’ [Writes a letter], by the ending ‘-ει’, we understand that we refer to a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ as ‘-ει’ refers to third person singular. The major difference between Greek and English here is that in English you unavoidably need to add the personal pronoun to indicate the person as without it the verb does not provide us with enough information about who does something (e.g. ‘He writes a letter’ not just ‘Writes a letter’, as in Greek). In other words, you don’t need to explicitly indicate the person who does something in Greek (the subject) as the verb ending will tell you so!

 

The verb ending also lets us know about how many people we are talking about (one, many etc.). In the sentence ‘Μιλούν για μας’[Talk-they about us], the ending ‘-ούν’ with the stem verb form ‘μιλ-’[talk] indicates that we refer to many people and therefore to ‘they’.

 

It’s also important to note that the second person plural form subject pronoun in Greek (εσείς [you]) may also be used politely to refer to one person instead of many. For example, in the sentence ‘(Eσείς) καπνίζετε;’ [(You) smoke-you?] may mean ‘you’ (as in ‘you two, more than two’ etc.) or ‘you’ (as referring to one person in a respectful way). The same happens to the verb ending here. In other words, ‘καπνίζετε’ may refer to one person (politeness strategy) or to more than one, second plural form of the verb ‘καπνίζ-ω’.

 

As we have said, since the verb’s inflectional ending shows the person and the number, in Greek you don’t need to add a subject pronoun (I, he, they etc.) as well to indicate that twice (i.e. the person and the number). Only in the case that you do wish to specially emphasize the subject. For example, in the sentence ‘Έσπασε το βάζο’[Broke the vase] although ‘Έσπασε’ shows a ‘he’ (or a ‘she’) if you want to clarify it even more emphatically that he did it then you would say ‘Αυτός έσπασε το βάζο’[He broke the vase].

 

 

Let’s sum up at what we have looked so far: 

 

1st Point: A verb form consists of a stem (base) and an inflectional ending (an ending that gives me extra information about different grammatical categories). 

 

2nd Point: The essential meaning is found in the stem of the verb.

 

3rd Point: I do not need to master the inflectional endings to be able to communicate a basic meaning as long as I use a stem verb form combined with a common inflectional ending (e.g. of the first person, ‘I’ or third person ‘they’).

 

4th Point: The inflectional ending carries additional meaning that represents specific grammatical categories. 

 

5th Point: From these grammatical categories, we have looked so far at ‘the person’ (i.e. who does something) and the number (‘how many people it involves’). 

 

6th Point: Since the inflectional ending of a verb gives me the person and the number, I do not need to explicitly add a subject (e.g. I, he, they) to indicate these. 

 

7th Point: The second plural form can also be used as a singular one as a politeness strategy. 8th Point: If I wish to add special emphasis to my sentence then I will add a subject pronoun as well. Ω

 

References:

Adams, D.Q. (1987). Essential Modern Greek Grammar. New York: Dover Publications.

Mackridge, P. (1990). The Modern Greek Language. Athens: Pataki.

Triantafillidis, M. (1996). The Modern Greek Grammar.