Tessellarius tesseras aptat.

the small mosaic cube

Breakdown of Tessellarius tesseras aptat.

• tessellarius: the mosaicist
• aptare: to fit; adapt

Questions & Answers about Tessellarius tesseras aptat.

How do I know tessellarius is the subject?

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

A learner can spot that because:

• tessellarius ends in -us
• that is a very common second-declension nominative singular ending for masculine nouns

Also, the verb aptat is third-person singular, so it matches a singular subject such as tessellarius.

What case is tesseras, and what does that tell me?

Tesseras is accusative plural.

That tells you it is the direct object: it receives the action of the verb.

So in the sentence structure:

• tessellarius = subject
• tesseras = direct object
• aptat = verb

The ending -as is a very common sign of the accusative plural of a first-declension noun.

What exactly does aptat tell me grammatically?