[*] 435. Time and tenses of the potential optative. Both action and ascertainment may be future, or only the ascertainment. The present is often used of the future ascertainment of a present action, far more rarely of the future ascertainment of a past state. The aorist is very seldom used of the future ascertainment of a past action. The simple perfect optative with “ἄν” is found chiefly in those verbs in which the perfect is equivalent to the present. In the periphrastic perfect optative with “ἄν”, the participle is often treated almost like an adjective.
Syntax of Classical Greek from Homer to Demosthenes. Basil L. Gildersleeve. New York. American Book Company. 1900.
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