Breakdown of O camelo caminha sob o sol impiedoso sem beber água.
beber
to drink
a água
the water
caminhar
to walk
o
him/it (m)
o sol
the sun
sem
without
sob
under (abstract or formal)
o camelo
the camel
impiedoso
merciless
Questions & Answers about O camelo caminha sob o sol impiedoso sem beber água.
I always mix up sob and sobre. How can I remember which one means under like in this sentence?
A helpful trick is that sob is a shorter word, just like under is lower! Sob means under or beneath (like sob o sol, under the sun), while the longer word sobre means over, above, or about.
How is the word impiedoso (merciless) formed?
It comes from the noun piedade (pity or mercy). By adding the negative prefix im- (meaning without) and the adjective suffix -oso (meaning full of or characterized by), we get impiedoso—literally meaning characterized by a lack of mercy.
Why is it sem beber (infinitive) instead of a gerund like bebendo (drinking)?
In Portuguese, prepositions like sem (without), antes de (before), and depois de (after) are always followed by the infinitive (beber), never the gerund. Even though English says without drinking, Portuguese structures this literally as without to drink.
Since this lesson is about não... senão (meaning nothing but or only), how could we use it to say the camel drinks nothing but water?
You would apply the restrictive negation structure by placing não before the verb and senão before the restricted noun. The drinking phrase would become não bebe senão água. If we attached it to the sentence as a second clause, it would look like this: O camelo caminha sob o sol impiedoso e não bebe senão água.
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