Breakdown of Amicus capillamentum tenet.
Questions & Answers about Amicus capillamentum tenet.
Amicus is the subject because it is in the nominative singular, the case normally used for the doer of the action.
The verb tenet is third-person singular, so it goes naturally with a singular subject like amicus: the friend holds.
Because amicus is nominative singular, while amicum would be accusative singular.
In this sentence, the friend is doing the action, so Latin uses amicus, not amicum.
Here capillamentum is the direct object, the thing being held.
A tricky point is that capillamentum is a neuter noun, and in Latin many neuter nouns have the same form in the nominative and accusative singular. So the form capillamentum by itself could be either subject or object. In this sentence, we understand it as the object because amicus is clearly nominative and makes a good subject, while tenet is a transitive verb that can take an object.