Questions & Answers about Hostes urbem perdere volunt.
Why is hostes the subject here? Doesn’t hostes sometimes mean an object too?
Yes. Hostes can be either:
- nominative plural = the enemies as the subject
- accusative plural = the enemies as the direct object
So how do we know which it is here?
Because of the rest of the sentence:
- volunt = they want, so it needs a plural subject
- urbem is clearly accusative singular, so that is the direct object of perdere
That makes hostes the most natural subject: the enemies want to destroy the city.
So Latin often uses context and agreement to show the role of a word.
Why is urbem used instead of urbs?
Because urbem is the accusative singular form of urbs.
- urbs = nominative singular, used for the subject
- urbem = accusative singular, used for the direct object
Since the city is the thing being destroyed, it must be in the accusative case, so Latin uses urbem.
Why is perdere in the infinitive instead of a finite verb like perdunt?