Notes On Koine Greek: Part 6

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1. “To Be” Verbs: Since the verb which means “to be” in Koine Greek is the one of the most
common verbs in the New Testament, it is the one “mi” verb that must be learned at the
beginning—the other verbs ending in “mi” come later. The must-know “to be” verb here is
“eimi” (I am).
2. Conjugation: The 6 conjugations for “eimi” are in the following table and should be
committed to memory:

Singular Plural *Take note once more of the

1 eimi esmen “movable “nu”. Recall the
2 ei este rule concerning these letters
from Pt. 4 of my notes!
3 esti (n) eisi (n)

*Note: One way to remember these table with a little more ease is to note that the first two letters of the first two
terms in each set match the first to letters of the third term in each set. You can see this via the matched colors
above.

3. Copulative: We have already seen amalgamation in the Greek verb system. We recall that
amalgamation was the process of two letters joining to become one. In the Greek verbal
system, another sort of joining takes place too: copulation. The Greek verb eimi is a
copulative verb because when it is used, it joins together the subject and predicate of the
sentence.
4. Subject & Predicate: Every complete sentence contains a subject and predicate. The
subject is “what” the sentence is about. To determine the subject, locate the verb. Then ask
a question of the verb such as “who” or “what”. This should help you define the subject.
Now, if you’ve already found the verb, chances are, you’re probably close to locating the
predicate because the predicate always contains the verb! For example, in the following
sentence 1) isolate the verb, 2) ask a question of the verb, 3) locate the subject, 4) locate the
predicate: John learns Greek. Answer: 1) The verb is “learns”. 2) Who learns? 3) John
learns. Thus, John is the subject. 4) If the predicate always includes the verb, then the
predicate is “learns Greek”. *Note that the predicate is not always / only 1 word!!! Try this
with a Greek sentence (remember to look at the morphemes before you start translating!!!):
Egw eimi. 1) The verb is “eimi” (am, to be) and, 2) Who is?, 3) The subject: “Egw” (I) is! 4)
The predicate is also “eimi”.
5. Clitic / Enclitic: So far, we’ve spoken of two types of “joining”: amalgamation and
copulation. A clitic is a word standing in its unstressed form because it threw its accent /
stress backwards on to the previous word. To give a crude English example: Let’s say that
you have the 2 words “for” and “ward” in a sentence where “ward” would normally receive
the accent or stress. However, if these two words appeared next to each other in a sentence,
with “for” being first and “ward” being second, the term “ward” would throw its accent
backwards onto “for” and the slight pause between the two terms would disappear. Now, the
two terms would be so closely joined that you might pronounce them as one word: forward!
(the italicized portion would be emphasized). The same sort of thing happens in Greek with
the present tense eimi (except for ei).