@Cerberus I started learning Ancient Greek! Question - does Greek have less conjugations than Latin? My book only mentions two.

@ktm5124 Congratulations!

Well, it is rather that its doesn't have "fixed" conjugations like Latin.

Latin clearly has 4 conjugations that very, very few verbs don't fit into.

The Latin conjugations tell you what all forms will look like that are based on the present stem; only the perfect finite and participle are irregular.

You could say Greek has 5 basic present-stem conjugations:

- stem + ending ("athematic/root stem"): deiknu-mi

- stem + o/e + ending ("thematic": the o and the e are really not part of the stem, but are theme vowels that are added between stem and ending, like i, e, u in Latin ducit, ducere, audiunt; note, however, that, in Latin, those are not called theme vowels: other kinds of vowels are called thema vowels in Latin, if the term is used at all): leg-ô → in many dialects vowels after the stem are contracted

- stem + a + o/e (also thematic, probably called "a stem"): nik-a-ô → in many dialects vowels after the stem are contracted

- stem + e + o/e (also thematic, probably called "e stem"): poi-e-ô → in many dialects vowels after the stem are contracted

- stem + o + o/e (also thematic, probably called "o stem"): dêl-o-ô → in many dialects vowels after the stem are contracted

However, there are many, many more endings in Greek that are not based on the present stem.

And contraction is often optional.

And Greek verbs are just more irregular in many ways.

So it makes less sense to speak of conjugations in Greek.

That's both interesting and a little intimidating. Are the omega verbs the most regular of the bunch?

Currently, and for most of the book (From Alpha to Omega), I think I will be learning omega verbs.

@ktm5124 Yes.

If by that you mean the ones that have stem + theme vowel (epsilon/omicron) + omega.

They are the most common.

Greek verbs are intimidating, but you can usually guess based on a number of clues, without knowing 100% how a form came about.

@Cerberus Thanks for explaining. I

@Cerberus I'm glad you frequent this chat room.