Predicting and deciding in Greek

by JLS
for the GC


Of all tenses, the future in Greek is the easiest to spot, since it is in essence a Present form with a sigma inserted between the stem and the ending. Thus, for

"lu-", to set free,

SINGULAR PLURAL
1 st Person luso lusomen
2 nd Person luseis lusete
3 rd Person lusei lusousi

Sanskrit has exactly the same Sigmatic Future, which Latin has only retained in vestige forms like the old "faxit" of the XII Law Table.

Probably the sigmatic future is one of the latest tense developments in Indo-European, since it does not show up in the other non-Mediterranean languages.

It is formed exactly like the Present Participle, except it will have the characteristic -s- of these sigmatic forms.

Thus beside "luso" etc we have:

Nominative Singular
"lusOn" and Genitive

"lusontos" etc, and of course the three grammatical Genders, in the above Present.

These follow the Type 3 noun formations exactly.

For the Future Infinitive, it is a mere "lusein", just what would be expected, but we have a problem with its meaning.

English has no Infinitive meaning

"to be about to go" or
"to be going to go",

so we have to extend our tense-sense somewhat to encompass the Greek range of infinitival expressions.

This may be confusing, but it is of course one of the good things about learning a language.