Rule 9: Subject Verb Agreement

[@josefnicholson1516]

Just wanted to say a massive thank you for all you do on this channel. I'm a current Classics undergraduate at the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom and was struggling with Latin a lot until I found your videos - I owe you for the First class classification I got in semester one Latin and I have no doubts that you will help me greatly with my upcoming exam - thank you and best wishes. Josef Nicholson

[@christianc7107]

Can the nominative case be omitted in a sentence or actually be inside the verb? In "Domini equum gladio terret" the verb is singular; even though "Domini" could be the subject it does not agree with the verb, so it has to be genetive. The other options are "equum" and "gladio" but "equum" is accusative and "gladio" is ablative and not dative according to the context. So I end up with the translation: He scares the owner's horse away with the sword. Am I doing this correctly? In "Caprum pueri timent" the verb is plural. "Pueri" could mainly either be plural nominative or singular genitive, so we can assume "pueri" is the subject; but what if "pueri" is actually genitive? Could the order then be "Pueri caprum tement" since the genitive generally goes before its corresponding noun? Maybe "The guys fear the goat" is most likely to be. Right? The thing is that "They fear the guys' goat" also makes sense. Only context can help here too? So if none of the words agree with the verb, does that mean the pronoun, which is encapsulated inside the verb, is the subject? If one of the words does agree with the verb but can also correspond to another case, does that mean it can play both roles? Ambiguity again... Am I doing something wrong?

[@latintutorial]

Correct, Latin (like other Romance languages like Spanish) can have an assumed subject that is often understood by context. So the nominative isn't necessary. Your first example is good. Your second one (caprum...) is problematic simply because we're dealing with out of context sentences. The simplest translation would be "the boys fear the goat" (or better, "it's the goat the boys fear"), unless you know you're working with just one boy and he has a goat.

[@commentfreely5443]

i mean nos sedemus

[@Hohniker]

There’s that pesky peculiarity I’ve been looking for! Thanks!

[@BellaMarsh03]

How to match a verb with an object in Latin is something I've been struggling with for a while now. Now I understand it. Thanks so much!

[@sarahgannon3433]

At about 3:40, is "intelligit" a typo? I thought it was spelled "intellegit."

[@Channel-zb1fi]

intelligit is the indicative active present singular third-person form of the verb intelligō, intelligere.