13.88 Formation of the First Aorist

Take a look at Croy's discussion of the formation of the first aorist in section 88. You have seen this information already on the preceding pages, since these first aorist forms are listed in the Chart of First Aorist Forms, and the First Aorist Infinitives.

Croy does not explicitly point out the most obvious guideline you can follow - in most cases, the formation of the first aorist is identical to the formation of the future stem, because both involve adding a sigma to the present stem.

This is because the future tense is part of the aorist system. The past tense of the aorist system is the aorist past tense. The non-past tense of the aorist system is, in fact, the future tense. (Another thing that the future has in common with other aorist system verbs is that the middle and passive forms are not identical, as they are for all verbs in the present system.)

There are many verbs you have studied which are not listed here in Croy. That is because there are many verbs that take a second aorist instead of a first aorist. The second aorist does not contain a sigma, so it is sometimes called the non-sigmatic aorist. You will be learning about the second aorist verbs in Lesson 14.