Breakdown of C'è un albero morto nel giardino.
essere
to be
un
a / an (masculine)
l'albero
the tree (m)
il giardino
the garden
Questions & Answers about C'è un albero morto nel giardino.
Since the current lesson is about past tenses, how would I change this to say that there was a dead tree?
You would use the imperfetto tense and say C'era un albero morto nel giardino. You use the imperfetto here because describing what was in a garden is an ongoing state or background description, not a sudden or completed action like you would express with the passato prossimo.
Is morto a verb or an adjective here?
It acts as an adjective here to describe the tree, but it is actually the past participle of the verb morire (to die). Like all adjectives, it must match the noun it describes. Because albero is masculine and singular, it ends in -o. If it were a dead plant (una pianta), it would be una pianta morta.
Why does the sentence use nel giardino instead of just in giardino?
Nel is a combined preposition made from in plus the definite article il. While Italians sometimes say in giardino to talk generally about being outside in the yard, nel giardino is used to point to a specific, physical garden.
How would the beginning of the sentence change if there were two dead trees?