Tignum ruinam impedit.

to prevent

Breakdown of Tignum ruinam impedit.

• tignum: the timber; roof beam
• ruina: the collapse; ruin

Questions & Answers about Tignum ruinam impedit.

How do I know which noun is doing the action in Tignum ruinam impedit?

Latin usually shows the job of a noun by its case ending, not mainly by word order.

Here, ruinam is clearly accusative singular, so it is the direct object. That means it is the thing being prevented.

So tignum must be the subject, the thing doing the preventing.

In other words:

• tignum = the beam / timber
• ruinam = the collapse
• impedit = prevents / hinders

So tignum is the doer of the action.

Why does tignum end in -um if it is the subject?

Because tignum is a neuter second-declension noun.

A very important Latin rule is:

• Neuter nominative = neuter accusative

So for a noun like tignum, tigni, n., both the nominative singular and the accusative singular are tignum.

That means the form tignum can be either subject or object, depending on the rest of the sentence.

In this sentence, it is understood as the subject because ruinam is already marked as the object.

What case is ruinam, and what would the nominative be?