"He is following his daughter."
Translation:Ακολουθά την κόρη του.
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Okay. That's a really good question.
There is a certain type of verbs called "συνηρημένα ρήματα", or in english, "contract verbs".
Contract verbs are verbs which have a stem ending in one of three short vowels, either α, ε or ο. This stem vowel contracts with any vowel or diphthong at the beginning of the final form of an ending, when that ending is joined to it. In other words:
- verb ending in -άω = verb ending in -ώ
(Rarest cases, mostly found in ancient greek)
-
verb ending in -όω = verb ending in -ώ
-
veb ending in -έω = verb ending in -ώ
exp. βοηθάω - βοηθώ
πεινάω -πεινώ
διψάω - διψώ
ακολουθάω - ακολουθώ (in this case, 3rd sing. ακολουθάει - ακολουθά)
τραβάω -τραβώ
Both forms are used and correct.
Note: Some define contract verbs as all verbs which have a stem ending in a vowel. But this is not actually true. Generally, the only real contract verbs are those which have a stem ending in one of the short vowels α, ε or ο. Verbs which have stems ending in other vowels are not usually contract verbs. For instance, there are many verb stems which end in a υ or ι. Yet the stem vowel on these verbs will never contract with a vowel or diphthong at the beginning of any ending joined to it.
(As for the pronoun, sometimes its ommited and implied.) I hope I helped. ^.^
Is ακολουθεί also correct?
Hm, Wiktionary claims yes: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%B1%CE%BA%CE%BF%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%B8%CF%8E
Curious! So it acts like an a-contract verb or an e-contract verb!
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Out of interest, the Modern Greek Verbs site (https://moderngreekverbs.com/akoloutho.html) only shows ακολουθεί, not ακολουθά.