Epsilon Contracts

Table of contents

1. Unit Vocabulary
2. Contract Verbs
3. Epsilon Contractions
4. Conjugation and Accentuation
   1. Present Tense
      1. Practice Opportunity 1
   2. Imperfect Tense
      1. Practice Opportunity 2

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Unit Vocabulary

• ἀδικέω, ἀδικήσω, ἠδίκησα, ἠδίκηκα, ἠδίκημαι, ἠδικήθην - to do wrong, injure
• δοκέω, δοκήσω, ἔδοξα, –, δέδογμαι, -ἐδόχθην - to think; (3rd sg.) to seem (best)
• ποιέω, ποιήσω, ἐποίησα, πεποίηκα, πεποίημαι, ἐποιήθην - to make, do

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Contract Verbs

All of the verbs that you have encountered so far have a first principal part whose stem ends in a consonant or υ. Some quick examples:

• ἄγω > ἀγ-
• κελεύω > κελευ-
• δείκνυμι > δεικνυ-
• ἔρχομαι > ἐρχ-

However, when the stem of a first principal part ends in the letters ε, α, or ο, as in the three verb entries above, that end of the stem will contract with the first vowel/diphthong of whatever personal ending gets added to the stem. For that reason, such verbs are called contract verbs. The most common type are epsilon-contracts, so we will focus on those for this unit and learn about alpha- and omicron-contracts at a later time.

Note that contractions are only a concern for forms built on the first principal part, i.e., the present and imperfect tenses. (There are also contracts in the future tense that we’ll discuss when we learn about the future tense.) This means that you do not need to worry about contractions in the aorist tense (i.e., forms built on the 3rd or 6th principal parts).

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Epsilon Contractions

This list indicates what results from the contraction of a verb stem’s -ε- with the various vowel/diphthong possibilities in present and imperfect personal endings. The combinations in bold are the ones that are directly applicable to the endings that you should have memorized by this point (3rd singular and plural in all voices of the present and the imperfect); the coded-out combinations are ones that will apply to endings that you will learn later on this year.

• ε + ει = ει
• ε + ου = ου
• ε + ε = ει
• ε + ο = ου
• ε + ᾱ = η
• ε + α = η
• ε + η = η
• ε + αι = ῃ
• ε + ῃ = ῃ
• ε + οι = οι
• ε + ω = ω
• ε + ῳ = ῳ

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Conjugation and Accentuation

The contraction of the stem’s epsilon with the following vowel simply adds an extra step into the process of conjugating in the present or imperfect tense:

1. find the stem (and add an augment if needed),
2. attach the appropriate personal ending,
3. replace the clashing vowels with their resulting contraction,
4. and apply a recessive accent.

The accentuation step will also have some specific rules, but first, let’s take the verb ποιέω as an example and see how the contractions work when we conjugate it in the present and imperfect tenses (and deal with the accentuation when we get there).

Present Tense

As usual, we begin by finding the stem from the first principal part; when we take -ω off the verb, we are left with ποιε-. This -ε- at the end of the stem classifies ποιέω as a contract verb, so we must be sure to apply that step of contracting the ε with the personal ending’s vowel/diphthong as we go.

If we start with the present tense, we know four endings that we can attach to this stem to conjugate the verb across all three voices in the 3rd person singular and plural:

The following chart shows the verb stem and the appropriate personal endings, with the vowels/diphthongs that we need to contract in bold (and an accent applied to the verb as if the vowels will remain uncontracted):

In terms of accentuation, we need to look at the two vowels to be contracted and the placement of the accent in the unaccented form.

• If the accent is on the stem vowel, it becomes a circumflex over the contraction.
• If the accent is on the first vowel of the ending, it remains an acute over the contraction.
• If the accent falls on neither vowel (e.g., it falls on an antepenult), it remains whatever it is.

So, given the chart above, our forms contract into the following:

Practice Opportunity 1

Conjugate the given verb into the present tense in the indicated person, number, and voice.

1. ἀδικέω - 3rd singular middle/passive
2. δοκέω - 3rd plural active
3. ἀδικέω - 3rd plural middle/passive
4. δοκέω - 3rd singular active

Imperfect Tense

When conjugating a contract verb in the imperfect, the same process applies with the addition of an augment and the swapping in of the imperfect endings:

Our verb, ποιέω, begins with a consonant, so it will receive a syllabic augment (ἐ-).

Then, the process of contraction results in the following forms:

Practice Opportunity 2

Conjugate the given verb into the imperfect tense in the indicated person, number, and voice.

1. δοκέω - 3rd singular middle/passive
2. ἀδικέω - 3rd plural active
3. δοκέω - 3rd plural middle/passive
4. ἀδικέω - 3rd singular active

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