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Femina potens civibus auxilium dat.

Femina potens civibus auxilium dat.
The powerful woman gives help to the citizens.
From Lesson 92:Fishing with friends at an estuary·Hardcore Latin

Questions & Answers about Femina potens civibus auxilium dat.

How do I know femina is the subject?
Because femina is in the nominative singular, which is the case normally used for the subject of a sentence. The verb dat is also singular, so femina fits as the one doing the action: the woman gives.
Why is it potens and not potenta?
Because potens is a third-declension adjective (or adjectival participle), not a first/second-declension adjective like bona. Its dictionary form is potens, potentis, and its nominative singular feminine form is still potens. So with femina, the correct form is potens, not potenta.
How does potens agree with femina if the endings are different?

In Latin, agreement means matching in gender, number, and case—not necessarily having the same ending.

Here:

  • femina = feminine, singular, nominative
  • potens = feminine, singular, nominative

So they agree correctly, even though one ends in -a and the other in -ens.

Why are there two nouns after the subject: civibus and auxilium?

Because the verb dare often has:

  • a direct object = the thing being given
  • an indirect object = the person receiving it

So in this sentence:

  • auxilium is the thing being given
  • civibus is the people receiving it
What case is civibus, and why?

It is dative plural, meaning to/for the citizens. With verbs of giving such as dat, the recipient usually goes in the dative case.

The form civibus can also be ablative plural in other sentences, but here the verb and meaning show that it is dative.

Why is auxilium the direct object even though it looks like the dictionary form?

Because auxilium is a neuter noun. In Latin, many neuter nouns have the same form for nominative singular and accusative singular.

So auxilium can be either form in appearance, but here it must be accusative singular because it is the thing being given.

What does dat tell me?

Dat comes from dare, meaning to give. This form is:

  • 3rd person
  • singular
  • present
  • active
  • indicative

So it means he/she/it gives. Since the subject is femina, here it means she gives.

Why is the verb at the end, and why does potens come after femina?

Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because Latin uses endings to show how words function in the sentence.

So:

  • putting the verb at the end is very common
  • putting an adjective after its noun is also common

The sentence could be rearranged in other ways and still mean basically the same thing, as long as the forms stay the same.

Where is the or a in the Latin sentence?

Latin does not have articles like English the or a/an. So:

  • femina can mean the woman or a woman
  • civibus can mean to the citizens or to citizens

The context decides which English translation is best.

What dictionary forms would I look up for these words?

You would normally look them up as:

  • femina, feminae = woman
  • potens, potentis = powerful, capable
  • civis, civis = citizen
  • auxilium, auxilii = help, aid
  • do, dare, dedi, datum = give

This is helpful because Latin sentences usually contain inflected forms, not the exact form shown in the dictionary.

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