Word
Aves in luce matutina cantant.
Meaning
Birds sing in the morning light.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Questions & Answers about Aves in luce matutina cantant.
Why is aves used here, and what form is it?
Aves is the nominative plural of avis, meaning bird.
It is nominative because it is the subject of the sentence: the birds are the ones doing the action. It is plural because there is more than one bird.
A learner might expect something ending in -ae for a plural subject, but avis is a third-declension noun, so its nominative plural is aves, not aviae.
What case is luce, and why is it not lux?
Luce is the ablative singular of lux, which means light.
The basic dictionary form is lux, but after the preposition in meaning in / within, Latin usually uses the ablative case when it expresses location.
So:
- lux = light (dictionary form, nominative singular)
- luce = in light / by light / within light (ablative singular here)
That is why the sentence has in luce, not in lux.
Why does in take the ablative here?