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Questions & Answers about Miles praedam portat.
Why does miles mean soldier here and not soldiers?
Because miles is singular nominative.
In this sentence, miles is the subject, so it appears in the nominative case. Its singular form happens to be miles. The plural would be militēs.
So:
- miles = soldier
- militēs = soldiers
Even though miles ends in -es, it is still singular. That can feel strange to an English speaker, but it is normal for some third-declension Latin nouns.
Why is praedam spelled with -am at the end?
The ending -am shows that praedam is in the accusative singular.
In Latin, the direct object of a verb usually goes in the accusative case. Since praedam is the thing being carried, it must be accusative.
Its basic dictionary form is praeda, and the forms here are:
- praeda = nominative singular
- praedam = accusative singular
So the -am ending tells you that this word is the object of portat.
How do I know that miles is doing the action and praedam is receiving it?