Frater crimen suum fatetur, et soror ei ignoscit.

and

Breakdown of Frater crimen suum fatetur, et soror ei ignoscit.

• soror: the sister
• frater: the brother
• suus: his

Questions & Answers about Frater crimen suum fatetur, et soror ei ignoscit.

Why is frater the subject of the first verb?

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

Here, frater means the brother or simply brother, depending on context. Since it is nominative, it is the one doing the action of fatetur.

So:

• frater = the brother
• fatetur = confesses

Together: The brother confesses...

Why is crimen in that form?

Crimen is the direct object of fatetur, so it appears in the accusative singular.

A useful thing to notice is that crimen is a neuter third-declension noun, and for many neuter nouns, the nominative and accusative singular look the same. So even though crimen looks unchanged, here it is functioning as an accusative object.

In this sentence:

• crimen = crime, accusation, or wrongdoing
• it is the thing being confessed

So crimen suum fatetur means he confesses his crime.

Why does Latin use suum instead of eius here?

Latin uses when the possession refers back to the . This is called the .