Word
Non è sposato, ma ha una figlia.
Meaning
He is not married, but he has a daughter.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Italian grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Non è sposato, ma ha una figlia.
If I wanted to change this to say 'his daughter', would I use the definite article la?
No, you would just say sua figlia. The rule you are learning applies here: singular, unmodified family members take the possessive adjective without the definite article. You only use the definite article for plural family members (le sue figlie) or if the family member is modified by an adjective (la sua bellissima figlia). In this sentence, we just use the indefinite article una (a).
Since the subject pronoun is dropped, could this sentence also mean 'She is not married'?
No, and the clue is the ending of sposato. When used as an adjective with essere (to be), it must agree in gender and number with the subject. Because it ends in -o, we know the implied subject is masculine ('he' or a masculine formal 'you'). If it were about a woman, the sentence would start with Non è sposata.
Is sposato a verb or an adjective here?
It is functioning as an adjective describing a state of being, which is why it uses essere (to be) and agrees with the subject. If you wanted to talk about the action of getting married in the past tense, you would use the reflexive verb sposarsi, which would look like this: Non si è sposato (He didn't get married).
Why don't we need to use a pronoun before ha in the second half of the sentence?