I took out the Latin Rosetta Stone from the library and im at the end of lesson 11 these 2 picture are confusing me bc of the endings. One picture has a girl with short hair, the other a boy w short hair. For girl it says "Femina capillos breves habet" boy it says "Vir capillos brevissimos habet" For the long haired one its the same sentence except it says "promissos". It doesnt have a different ending for the long haired boy and girl as it does for the latin short haired. None of the noun endings for latin is "imos" or "es" either. SO why isnt the word the same for both??? can someone plz explain...
"Femina capillos breves habet."
The woman has short hair.
"Vir capillos brevissimos habet."
The man has the shortest hair.
(Or -- The man has very short hair.)
"promissos" modifying "capillos" means that the hair is long (allowed to grow).
The words "breves" and "brevissimos" and "promissos" are all adjectives that are in the accusative plural to modify (match) the direct object, "capillos."
They seem to be giving you similar but not identical sentences:
**Subject is nominative singular (femina, vir).
**Direct object is accusative plural (capillos).
**Verb is 3rd person singular present (habet).
**BUT the adjectives are slightly different:
~~ "breves" is a positive, 3rd declension, accusative plural to modify "capillos"
~~ "brevissimos" is a superlative, accusative plural to modify "capillos" (Note that all superlatives have 1st and 2nd declension endings, even if the positive is in 3rd declension.)
~~ "promissos" is a positive, 1st/2nd declension, accusative plural to modofy "capillos"
what do you mean by its postive? can it be negative?
so if "imos" is added to the ending of a word that just is like saying "very" ?
In Latin, nouns have different forms or endings depending on their gender, number, and case. This is known as noun declension. Additionally, adjectives also have different forms to match the gender, number, and case of the noun they describe.
Let's break down the sentences you mentioned to understand why the word forms are different.
In the first sentence, "Femina capillos breves habet," the noun "femina" means "woman" and the adjective "breves" means "short." Here, "capillos" is the accusative plural form of "capillus," which means "hair." So, the sentence translates to "The woman has short hairs."
In the second sentence, "Vir capillos brevissimos habet," the noun "vir" means "man" and the adjective "brevissimos" means "shortest" or "very short." Again, "capillos" is the accusative plural form of "capillus," so the sentence translates to "The man has very short hairs."
Now, you mentioned a version of the sentence with the word "promissos." "Promissos" is actually the accusative plural form of the adjective "promissus," which means "long." Therefore, the sentence "Promissos capillos habet" would translate to "He/She has long hairs."
In Latin, the adjectives have to match the gender, number, and case of the noun they modify. So, in the sentence with the long-haired person, the adjective "promissos" is in its accusative plural form to match the accusative plural form of the noun "capillos." The word "promissos" is different from "breves" and "brevissimos" because the masculine adjective form of "long" is different from the forms used for "short."
To summarize, the difference in word forms is due to the noun declension and adjective agreement rules in Latin. Nouns and adjectives have different forms depending on gender, number, and case. In the sentences you provided, the forms change to match the gender (femina/vir), number (plural accusative capillos), and the different adjective meanings (breves/brevissimos/promissos).