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Negative commands in Greek are an anomaly: the two different aspects are also marked by different moods.
In positive commands the present and aorist forms of the imperative are found expressing the two different aspects:
| present | aorist |
|---|---|
| present imperative | aorist imperative |
In negative commands, however, the aorist imperative is not used. Instead, the aorist subjunctive is found:
| present | aorist | |
|---|---|---|
| imperative | present | X |
| subjunctive | X | aorist |
Several explanations for this anomaly have been proffered but none seem particularly convincing. It is possible that a distinction was originally made between two different types of negative command (stopping something that was actually happening vs. stopping something that the speaker feared might happen - see further Willmott 2010). Certainly, the original distinction seems to have been lost, and the constructions used for negative command may be learnt as the aorist and present equivalent of each other.
Summary table:
| present | aorist | |
|---|---|---|
| positive | present imperative | aorist imperative |
| negative: | present imperative | aorist subjunctive |