I came upon this form in W. Gunion Rutherford’s Syntax. The whole sentence is ἐδέδισαν μὴ οἱ Ἀθηαῖοι διαφθείρειαν σφᾶς they feared that the Athenians would destroy them. I think that this the aorist optative. Am I right? I tried the Perseus Greek word study tool. No luck there. I am less impressed with this tool the more I consult it. I tried Μορφώ in Logeion and that seemed more promising. What online resources would you suggest for parsing verbs when I really get stuck?
I frequently rely on the parser at https://www.lexigram.gr/lex/grecoantico/. Quite often I find that it accepts forms that Perseus won’t analyze, and it also shows the full conjugation of the verb, even the participles. If you mistype something it will try to suggest the correct form, which feels like divine mercy compared to the brutal rejections of Perseus. The only downside is that it’s in Italian (and a bit unstable), but that’s not really a problem given that most of the grammatical terms are easy to understand.
For διαφθείρειαν it gives: Lemma διαφθείρω Parte verbo Forma attiva Tempo aoristo Modo ottativo Numero plurale Persona terza. That is the active aorist optative 3. person plural of the verb διαφθείρω.
Thank you. I will try it.
You can always find cheats to tell you what something is. But you can also learn to tell what something is wihout having to be told. This saves time in the long run (not in the short run, admittedly) and gives you a justified sense of real accomplishment. It puts you in a position to understand Greek without having to constantly resort to external resources for particular forms.
The thing to remember about (δια)φθείρω is that the aorist stem is (δια)φθειρ-, just the same as the present stem. So it behaves like a regular sigmatic aorist (ἔλυσα, ἔπαυσα, ἔδειξα, etc.) even though it has no sigma. You have to look at the endings to know whether it’s present or aorist. -ειαν is a (3pl.) aorist optative ending, unlike -οιεν, present optative. Tricky but worth remembering.
The next question would be What is the difference in sense between present optative and aorist optative? That’s a matter of “aspect,” and a parser will not help you with that.
Lexigram is not free. Or at least when I went there it wanted 7 euros for a subscription.
Logeion shows it, too, for free.
Thank you for your very helpful comment, mwh. I agree with you wholeheartedly. In fact, I answered my own question by reviewing the conjugation of the aorist of λύω and found the form λύσειαν for the optative. Thus, it was the ending that helped me identify the form. I have found it a very fruitful practice simply to review over and over again Greek accidence in my books. There were no computers or internet when I started learning Greek and Latin.