Word
Le dinastie ebbero molti soldati nei loro territori.
Meaning
The dynasties had many soldiers in their territories.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Le dinastie ebbero molti soldati nei loro territori.
avere
to have
molto
a lot of / much
in
in / made of (material)
loro
their
Questions & Answers about Le dinastie ebbero molti soldati nei loro territori.
Why do we use ebbero here instead of the imperfetto avevano?
Ebbero is the passato remoto (historical past) form of avere. It is used here because dynasties belong to the distant, closed historical past. Using the passato remoto frames their possession of soldiers as a completed historical fact rather than an ongoing background description.
Is ebbero a regular verb form?
No, avere is highly irregular in the passato remoto. While regular verbs follow a predictable pattern for their endings, avere uses a completely different root for the io, lui/lei, and loro forms. For "they had", you simply have to memorize ebbero.
Why does the sentence use nei loro instead of just in loro?
In Italian, you almost always need a definite article before a possessive adjective, even after a preposition. Because territori is masculine plural, it takes the article i (i loro territori). When you combine the preposition in with the article i, they merge into the single word nei.
The singular of territori is territorio. Why doesn't the plural end with two "i"s (territorii)?