Lesson 6.2 · Mood
The subjunctive
What may, might or should happen.
ei before the tense vowel means the
action is not being stated as a fact. It is possible, intended,
hoped for, or being proposed:
Its commonest home by far is after hina, "so that" —
which is how the best-known verse in the Bible ends:
hina … mē apollueteia alla echateiō zōan aiōnian.
so that … he should not perish but have eternal
life. (John 3:16)
Both verbs there carry the ei: they describe the
purpose, not something that has happened.
hina agapaveiō allēloin
that ye love one another (John 15:12)
hina "so that", after ean "if", and in
questions like "what should we do?" — all of them talk about
something not (yet) a fact.In the Greek — a lengthened vowel
Greek marks the subjunctive by lengthening the vowel before the ending: λύει becomes λύῃ, λύομεν becomes λύωμεν. The difference can be a single letter, or only a mark under one, which is why beginners so often read straight past it. Here it is two letters in the middle of the word.
The tense on a subjunctive is not about time — it is aspect
only (Lesson 4.6). echateiō with ō is
"may keep having"; the aorist would be "may have".