Indirect statement with the infinitive and accusative subject

To express indirect statement after φημί and other verbs refering to thinking or believing (such as νομίζω and ἡγέομαι), one common construction is to put the verb of the indirect statement in a form that is new to us, called the infinitive. Our term “infinitive” derives from the Greek grammarians: they called this form the “unbounded” (or “infinite”) form because it does not specify a person or number: only the tense and voice. As the participle is a kind of adjective made from a verbal stem, the infinitive is a kind of noun made from a verbal stem. Like participles and finite verbs, infinitives convey a verbal idea that can have its own subject and object.

Similar to participles (which also have tense and voice, but no person, number or mood), the voice of the infinitive expresses the same ideas that the active, middle and passive voices convey in other verb forms, while the tense shows aspect as well as time. Like the present participle, the present infinitive represents an ongoing, continuous, or repeated aspect, and the aorist, the single or simple aspect; the perfect infinitive combines the aorist tense’s sense of completion with an idea of continuing or ongoing impact or effect. We will also see uses of the infinitive where this aspect overlaps with ideas about the time of the infinitive’s action.

When the subject of the indirect statement is different from the subject of the main verb, it appears in the accusative case.  

Examples

We’ll learn how to form the infinitive in the following section. In these examples, consider how the tense of indirect statement relates to the tense of the main verb in English and in Greek. (Note in these examples that Ἐρατοσθένη is the accusative singular of the name Ἐρατοσθένης, Ἐρατοσθένους.)

A main verb in the present tense (νομίζει)

πράττειν is a present active infinitive, so its action is open-ended, incomplete, or contemporary with the time of the main verb.

νομίζει Ἐρατοσθένη τοῦτο πράττειν.

‘He thinks that Eratosthenes is doing this.’

πράξαι is an aorist active infinitive, so its action is completed or prior to the time of the main verb.

νομίζει Ἐρατοσθένη τοῦτο πράξαι.

‘He thinks that Eratosthenes did this.’

A main verb in the aorist tense (ἐνόμισεν)

ἐνόμισεν Ἐρατοσθένη τοῦτο πράττειν.

‘He thought that Eratosthenes was doing this.’

ἐνόμισεν Ἐρατοσθένη τοῦτο πράξαι.

‘He thought that Eratosthenes had done this.’

As these examples show, the tense of the infinitive is not affected by the tense of the main verb. Don’t by misled by the way English changes the tense of an indirect statement: the Greek infinitive will typically be in the same tense as the original statement (or if the original verb was in the imperfect, the present infinitive can be used to express an ongoing action).

If the subject of the infinitive is the same as the subject of the introductory verb, often no separate subject is expressed:

νομίζει τοῦτο πράττειν.

‘He thinks that he (=the same person) is doing this.’

If a predicate adjective appears, it is nominative since it agrees with the subject of the main verb:

ἐνόμισεν ἀγαθὸς εἶναι.

‘He thought that he was good.’

To fully identify an infinitive, identify its tense, voice, that it is an infinitive, and what verb it comes from. For example, ποιεῖν (which appears in Lysias 1.6 and Lysias 1.33) would be identified as: present active infinitive from ποιέω.