🗣️ The -μι verbs and the irregular verbs

A small group of very common verbs adds the personal endings to the stem without the thematic vowel ο/ε: δίδω-μι "give", τίθη-μι "put", ἵστη-μι "make stand", ἵη-μι "send", δείκνυ-μι "show", and the verbs of being and going, εἰμί and εἶμι. They are the athematic or -μι verbs, the second conjugation (smyth-1920 §§717–797). Their forms are irregular to a learner and regular to a historian: a stem with two grades (long in the singular active, short elsewhere), a reduplicated present, and an aorist in -κα in three of them. They are few, but they are among the commonest words of every text, and their compounds (ἀποδίδωμι "give back", ἀνίστημι "raise", παρατίθημι "set beside") are many.

Contents

1. The marks of the -μι verbs
2. δίδωμι, τίθημι, ἵστημι, ἵημι: the present system
3. Their aorists
4. ἵστημι: transitive and intransitive
5. δείκνυμι and the -νυμι verbs
6. εἰμί "be"
7. εἶμι "go"
8. φημί "say", οἶδα "know", κεῖμαι "lie", κάθημαι "sit"
9. The -μι verbs in the Koine
10. How Mova handles it
11. Sources

1. The marks of the -μι verbs

• No thematic vowel in the present system (and in some aorists): δίδο-μεν, not *διδό-ο-μεν.
• Two grades of the stem: long in the singular of the active indicative, short elsewhere: δίδωμι but δίδομεν; τίθημι but τίθεμεν; ἵστημι but ἵσταμεν (smyth-1920 §§744–747).
• Reduplication with ι in the present: δί-δω-μι, τί-θη-μι (for *θί-θη-μι), ἵ-στη-μι (for *σί-στη-μι), ἵ-η-μι.
• The endings -μι, -ς, -σι in the singular, -ᾱσι in the 3rd plural (διδόᾱσι, τιθέᾱσι), -ναι in the infinitive (διδόναι, τιθέναι, ἱστάναι), -ς in the participle (διδούς, τιθείς, ἱστάς).

2. δίδωμι, τίθημι, ἵστημι, ἵημι: the present system

Present indicative active (smyth-1920 §§747–756):

The imperfect singular often takes thematic forms: ἐδίδουν, ἐδίδους, ἐδίδου; ἐτίθεις, ἐτίθει.

3. Their aorists

δίδωμι, τίθημι and ἵημι have a κ-aorist in the singular active and a root aorist elsewhere (smyth-1920 §§755–756):

The future and perfect are regular, on the long grade: δώσω, δέδωκα, ἐδόθην; θήσω, τέθηκα, ἐτέθην; ἥσω, εἷκα, εἵθην.

The short aorist forms (δός, δοῦναι, θές, θεῖναι) are often the only sign of the verb in a sentence: a lemmatizer must know them.

4. ἵστημι: transitive and intransitive

ἵστημι has two aorists, with two meanings (smyth-1920 §819):

The compounds keep the split: ἀνέστησα "I raised (someone)", ἀνέστην "I rose". In the Septuagint and the Gospels ἀνίστημι with its intransitive aorist ἀνέστη is "he rose" (19 tokens of ἀνίστημι in PTNK train, UD 2.18, 2026-10-22). The perfect ἕστηκα is stative: "I have taken my stand" = "I stand".

5. δείκνυμι and the -νυμι verbs

A larger group adds -νυ- to the root in the present: δείκ-νυ-μι "show", ζεύγ-νυ-μι "yoke", ὄμ-νυ-μι "swear", ῥήγ-νυ-μι "break", σβέν-νυ-μι "quench". The singular active has a long υ (δείκνῡμι, δείκνῡς), the rest short (δείκνυμεν). Outside the present system they are ordinary thematic verbs: δείξω, ἔδειξα, δέδειχα. In the Koine they pass to the thematic type: δεικνύω, ὀμνύω.

6. εἰμί "be"

εἰμί has only the present system and a middle future (smyth-1920 §§768–772):

Subjunctive ὦ, ᾖς, ᾖ; optative εἴην; infinitive εἶναι; participle ὤν, οὖσα, ὄν. The present forms except εἶ are enclitic (chapter 2). At the head of a clause, or meaning "exists, is possible", ἐστί takes the accent on the first syllable: ἔστι(ν) "there is, it is possible". It has no aorist or perfect: γίγνομαι "become" (ἐγενόμην, γέγονα) supplies them.

7. εἶμι "go"

εἶμι "I shall go" has only the present system, and its present indicative has a future sense in Attic prose (smyth-1920 §§773–776): εἶμι, εἶ, εἶσι; ἴμεν, ἴτε, ἴασι; imperfect ᾖα, ᾔεις; infinitive ἰέναι; participle ἰών, ἰοῦσα, ἰόν. It serves as the future of ἔρχομαι ("I come, go"), whose present indicative is used beside it. The principal parts of "go" are therefore ἔρχομαι, εἶμι, ἦλθον, ἐλήλυθα (chapter 7, §9).

Do not confuse:

• εἶ "you are" (εἰμί) with εἶ "you will go" (εἶμι): the same form;
• εἰσί "they are" with εἶσι "he will go";
• εἶναι "to be" with ἰέναι "to go", and with ἱέναι "to send" (ἵημι).

8. φημί "say", οἶδα "know", κεῖμαι "lie", κάθημαι "sit"

• φημί "say, affirm" (smyth-1920 §§783–788): φημί, φῄς, φησί; φαμέν, φατέ, φασί; imperfect ἔφην, ἔφη "he said", the commonest verb introducing direct speech. All the present indicative except φῄς is enclitic. οὔ φημι means "I deny, refuse".
• οἶδα "I know" is a perfect with a present sense (smyth-1920 §§794–797): οἶδα, οἶσθα, οἶδε; ἴσμεν, ἴστε, ἴσᾱσι; pluperfect ᾔδη "I knew"; infinitive εἰδέναι; participle εἰδώς. It is the perfect of the root of εἶδον "I saw": "I have seen" → "I know".
• κεῖμαι "lie, be laid" serves as the perfect passive of τίθημι: κεῖται "it lies, is laid down; it is established (of a law)".
• κάθημαι "sit" (from ἧμαι) has only the present system.
• χρή "it is necessary" is an indeclinable noun used as a verb, with ἦν χρῆν, χρῆναι (smyth-1920 §793).

9. The -μι verbs in the Koine

The athematic inflection retreats in the Koine:

• the -νυμι verbs become thematic (δεικνύω);
• ἵστημι takes the forms of ἱστάνω and στήκω (from the perfect ἕστηκα);
• δίδωμι keeps its forms but the subjunctive and the optative are confused (δῷ, δώῃ);
• the aorist ἔδωκα spreads its κ to the plural (ἐδώκαμεν, ἔδωκαν).

δίδωμι is the most frequent -μι verb in the PTNK training set (65 tokens; 11 more of ἀποδίδωμι), then ἀνίστημι, ἵστημι and τίθημι (UD 2.18, 2026-10-22) (grc-x-koine).

10. How Mova handles it

In the UD trees.

• The -μι verbs have the dictionary lemma (δίδωμι) for every form, including the short aorist forms (δός, δοῦναι).
• εἰμί is AUX in PTNK wherever it stands, mostly as the copula (cop, 223 times in the training set; UD 2.18, 2026-10-22).
• εἶμι and εἰμί have different lemmas; the ambiguous εἶ is resolved by the annotators from the context.

In Mova. These verbs are a short, closed list. A Greek lexicon in Mova would hold their forms whole, as the English lexicon holds be, have, go and their forms, rather than derive them by rule: dozens of forms per verb, a few verbs, and the compounds by their prefixes. The ἵστημι split (§4) matters for the frames:

• ἀνέστησα has an agent and a patient ("raised someone");
• ἀνέστην has only a subject ("rose").

The reader must take the valency from the aorist type. None of this exists yet; it is the first thing a Greek lexicon would need after the article and the pronouns.

11. Sources

• Smyth, H. W. 1920 (smyth-1920): §§717–797 (the -μι verbs and the irregular verbs), §819 (ἵστημι), paraphrased from the Perseus text (CC BY-SA).
• Goodwin, W. W. 1892 (goodwin-1892): the -μι verbs, public domain.
• UD Ancient Greek PTNK (CC BY-SA 4.0): counts.

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