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I am working on Latin For Beginners by D'Ooge. On Lesson VII, ex. 62, # "7. Filia agricolae est grata dominae." The key says the answer is " The daughter of the farmer is pleasing to the lady/mistress of the house.", but if it is "dominae", shouldn't it be " The daughter of the farmer is pleasing to the ladies." ?

sagitta wrote:I am working on Latin For Beginners by D'Ooge. On Lesson VII, ex. 62, # "7. Filia agricolae est grata dominae." The key says the answer is " The daughter of the farmer is pleasing to the lady/mistress of the house.", but if it is "dominae", shouldn't it be " The daughter of the farmer is pleasing to the ladies." ?

"dominae" can be plural when in the nominitive case (i.e., as the subject of a sentence) but here it is in the dative case. The dative singular is dominae, while the plural would be "dominis."

"dominae" is also a genitive singular form (i.e., the lady's, but not in this example)

Determining which meaning of "dominae" is appropriate requires looking at the rest of the sentence (for example, the verb here is "est" which indicates a single subject. Sunt would be required if dominae were nom.).