Word
Avia de scalis lente descendit.
Meaning
Grandmother comes down the stairs slowly.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Avia de scalis lente descendit.
lente
slowly
avia
the grandmother
scalae
the stairs
descendere
to come down
Questions & Answers about Avia de scalis lente descendit.
Why is avia the subject of the sentence?
Avia is in the nominative singular, which is the case normally used for the subject of a sentence in Latin. It means grandmother.
A learner may also notice that the verb descendit is third person singular, so it matches a singular subject like avia.
Why does Latin use de scalis here?
The preposition de commonly means down from, from, or off and it takes the ablative case. So de scalis means down from the stairs or from the staircase.
With a verb like descendit (goes down / descended), de scalis tells you the place from which the movement happens.
Why is scalis in the ablative case?
Because de requires the ablative.
- dictionary form: scalae
- ablative plural: scalis
So after de, you get de scalis, not de scalae or de scalas.
Why is scalis plural? Does it mean more than one staircase?