# BBG Chapter 22 — Second Aorist Active and Middle Indicative

## Files

### Exercises

Exercise | Description
--- | ---
exercises/ch22-second-aorist-parsing/ | Second Aorist Parsing Drill — 20 forms to parse
exercises/ch22-aorist-contrast/ | First vs. Second Aorist Contrast Drill — 20 items: classify type, parse PGN, lexical form, translate

### Flashcards

File | Description
--- | ---
ch22-vocab-deck.md | Human-readable card list — 14 vocabulary words
ch22-vocab-deck.txt | Anki import file (File → Import)
ch22-vocab-deck-fd.txt | Flashcards Deluxe import file

### Notebooks

Notebook | What it shows
--- | ---
GNT Verb Morphology | Aorist tense dominance; tense × voice; top lemmas
Genre Comparison | Aorist distribution and voice; most common aorist roots by genre

Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, Mounce, 4th Edition
Data: MACULA Greek TAGNT (~15,000 aorist active/middle indicative tokens NT-wide)

## 1. The Aorist Tense — Overview

The aorist indicative expresses perfective aspect (viewing action as a whole, without reference to duration or repetition) in past time. The aorist is the default "narrative past" tense of the GNT — it simply says that an action happened.

Feature | Value
--- | ---
Tense | Aorist
Aspect | Perfective (action viewed as a complete whole)
Time | Past
Augment | Yes
Endings | Secondary

The aorist comes in two types, distinguished by their stem formation:

Type | Marker | Example
--- | --- | ---
First Aorist | σα tense formant (Ch23) | ἔλυσα
Second Aorist | Different stem + secondary endings, no σα | ἔλαβον

## 2. Second Aorist — Key Characteristics

The second aorist (also called the "strong aorist" in older grammars) is characterized by:

1. A completely different stem from the present (suppletive or ablaut-reduced)
2. The augment (same as the imperfect)
3. Secondary endings (same as the imperfect)
4. No σα formant (this is what distinguishes it from the first aorist)

> The Critical Rule: The only way to distinguish a second aorist from an imperfect is by the stem. The endings and augment are identical. If you see ἔβαλλον, the double λ marks it as the imperfect of βάλλω. If you see ἔβαλον, the single λ marks it as the second aorist.

## 3. Comparison: Imperfect vs. Second Aorist

Feature | Imperfect | Second Aorist
--- | --- | ---
Stem | Present stem | Aorist stem (different!)
Augment | Yes | Yes
Endings | Secondary | Secondary (same!)
Aspect | Imperfective (ongoing) | Perfective (whole event)
Identification | By present stem | By different (aorist) stem

## 4. Full Paradigm — Second Aorist Active (λαμβάνω / ἔλαβον)

Person/Number | Second Aorist Active | Translation
--- | --- | ---
1sg | ἔλαβον | I took
2sg | ἔλαβες | You took
3sg | ἔλαβε(ν) | He/she/it took
1pl | ἐλάβομεν | We took
2pl | ἐλάβετε | You (pl) took
3pl | ἔλαβον | They took

## 5. Full Paradigm — Second Aorist Middle (γίνομαι / ἐγενόμην)

Person/Number | Second Aorist Middle | Translation
--- | --- | ---
1sg | ἐγενόμην | I became
2sg | ἐγένου | You became
3sg | ἐγένετο | He/she/it became
1pl | ἐγενόμεθα | We became
2pl | ἐγένεσθε | You (pl) became
3pl | ἐγένοντο | They became

## 6. Major Second Aorist Verbs

These verbs must be memorized. Their second aorist forms occur thousands of times in the GNT:

Present | 2nd Aorist Active | Meaning | GNT Freq. (aor.)
--- | --- | --- | ---
λαμβάνω | ἔλαβον | I take/receive | ~260
λέγω | εἶπον | I say | ~1,000+
ἔρχομαι | ἦλθον | I come/go | ~630
ὁράω | εἶδον | I see | ~340
φέρω | ἤνεγκα / ἤνεγκον | I carry/bear | ~65
γίνομαι | ἐγενόμην | I become/happen | ~635
ἔχω | ἔσχον | I have | ~40
βάλλω | ἔβαλον | I throw | ~100
εὑρίσκω | εὗρον | I find | ~170
ἀποθνῄσκω | ἀπέθανον | I die | ~100
πίνω | ἔπιον | I drink | ~70
ἐσθίω | ἔφαγον | I eat | ~95

> Note: εἶπον (from λέγω) and ἦλθον (from ἔρχομαι) are suppletive stems. They have no etymological connection to their present-tense counterparts — they must be memorized as vocabulary.

## 7. Identifying Second Aorist Forms — Step by Step

When you encounter an unfamiliar past-tense form:

1. Remove the augment: ε- prefix → strip it; lengthened vowel → restore short vowel
2. Check the ending: secondary endings (-ον, -ες, -ε, -ομεν, -ετε, -ον) place it in aorist/imperfect
3. Compare the stem to the present: same stem = imperfect; different stem = second aorist
4. Look it up: if the root is unfamiliar, check the principal parts list

## 8. Aspect and Translation

The second aorist, like the first aorist, expresses perfective aspect:

Aspect | Appropriate Translations
--- | ---
Perfective (aorist) | "I took" / "He said" / "They came"
Imperfective (imperfect) | "I was taking" / "He was saying" / "They were coming"

> Example from John 1:11:
> ἦλθεν εἰς τὰ ἴδια, καὶ οἱ ἴδιοι αὐτὸν οὐ παρέλαβον.
> "He came to his own, and his own did not receive him."
> Both ἦλθεν and παρέλαβον are 2nd aorist forms — single, completed past events.

## 9. GNT Frequency Context

The aorist indicative (1st and 2nd combined) is the most frequent verb form in the GNT — well over 10,000 occurrences. Second aorist forms alone represent several thousand tokens because the most common Greek verbs (λέγω, ἔρχομαι, ὁράω, γίνομαι) are all second aorist in their past tense.