Miles de familia sua saepe cogitat.

the family

Breakdown of Miles de familia sua saepe cogitat.

• saepe: often
• de: about
• miles: the soldier

Questions & Answers about Miles de familia sua saepe cogitat.

Why is miles the subject of the sentence?

Miles is in the nominative singular, which is the case normally used for the subject of a Latin sentence.

• miles = soldier
• nominative singular of a 3rd-declension noun

So Miles ... cogitat means The soldier ... thinks or A soldier ... thinks.

Latin often shows the job of a word by its ending, not by putting it first in the sentence.

Why is familia after de? What case is it?

After de, Latin normally uses the ablative case. So familia here is ablative singular.

• dictionary form: familia
• ablative singular: also familia

The phrase de familia means about the family or concerning the family.

This is important because cogitare de + ablative is a very common way to say to think about something.

Why does Latin use de here? Why not just put familia by itself?

Because the idea is think about, and in Latin that is commonly expressed as:

cogitare de + ablative

So:

• cogitat de familia =