Indirect statement introduced by a subordinate conjunction
To express indirect statement with a verb indicating speaking, such as λέγω, Greek can use the conjunction ὅτι or ὡς followed by a finite verb form. This is very similar to English, where we can use “that” to introduce a subordinate clause, as in, “She says that Eratosthenes was doing these things.” With the verb εἶπον or with λέγω in the active voice, this is the most common way to express indirect statement. When λέγω is in the passive voice (“it was said”), the infintive with an accusative subject (discussed above) is common.
In the subordinate clause introduced by ὅτι or ὡς, the same tense and mood of the direct statement is retained. This makes it easy to know what tense the verb in the original statement was! English makes the tense of the verb in the indirect statement relative to the tense of the verb of speaking, so, for example, a past tense verb in the original statement in English is shifted to further in the past when the verb of speaking is put in the past.
Examples:
αὕτη λέγει ὅτι ὁ Ἐρατοσθένης ταῦτα ἔπραττεν.
‘This woman says that Eratosthenes was doing these things.’
αὕτη εἶπεν ὅτι ὁ Ἐρατοσθένης ταῦτα ἔπραττεν.
‘This woman said that Eratosthenes had been doing these things.’
Indirect statement in secondary sequence
Recall that we use the term secondary tense to refer to a group of tenses referring to past time (including the imperfect and aorist tenses). This is in contrast to primary tenses that express action in the present or future.
When the main verb is in a primary tense, we say that any subordinate clause depending on it is in primary sequence; when the main verb is a secondary tense, we say that any of its subordinate clauses are in secondary sequence.
As we will see further in the following module, many kinds of subordinate clauses in secondary sequence can use the optative mood; subordinate in primary sequence often use the subjunctive mood.
| Sequence | Tense of the main verb | Mood of the verb in subordinate clause |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Present, Future, or Perfect | Subjunctive |
| Secondary | Imperfect, Aorist, or Pluperfect | Optative |
In subordinate clauses introduced by ὅτι or ὡς to express indirect statement, when the main verb is in secondary sequence, the verb of the subordinate clause is often changed from the indicative to the optative, keeping the same tense. (Remember that the imperfect tense exists only in the indicative mood: there are no other moods, no participles, no infinitives of the imperfect. When the optative mood replaces an imperfect form, the present optative is used to express the idea of continued, repated or otherwise incomplete action.)
The choice to use an optative rather than an indicative probably places more emphasis on the remoteness of the past event: it marks the reported statement as less vivid than an indicative.
Consider the following examples. We might translate the following indirect statement using πράττει in the present indicative like this:
αὕτη εἶπεν ὅτι ὁ Ἐρατοσθένης ταῦτα πράττει.
‘This woman said that Eratosthenes was doing these things.’
If we replace πράττει with the present optative form πράττοι, we might arrive at the same translation in English:
αὕτη εἶπεν ὅτι ὁ Ἐρατοσθένης ταῦτα πράττοι.
‘This woman said that Eratosthenes was doing these things.’
In Greek, however, the second example distances the speaker just a little bit from the claim of the indirect statement. The claim that Eratosthenes was doing these things is not characterized as simply factual, but the result of a second-hand report – and perhaps therefore subject to question?