Word
Marco dorme sul prato.
Meaning
Marco sleeps on the lawn.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Questions & Answers about Marco dorme sul prato.
What tense and person is dorme, and how is it conjugated?
dorme is the third-person singular present indicative of dormire (to sleep). The full present indicative conjugation is:
This form indicates that Marco sleeps (either habitually or right now).
Could I say Marco sta dormendo sul prato to express the same idea?
What is sul, and why is it used here?
sul is a contraction of the preposition su (on) + the definite article il (the). So sul prato literally means “on the meadow.” Italian commonly combines certain prepositions with definite articles:
- su + il → sul
- su + lo → sullo
- su + la → sulla
- …and so on.