On page 98, lines 75-80 of Lingua Latina are the following phrases:
"...nox atque dies aequi sunt;"
"...nox aequa est atque dies."
Is it like this:
"night and day ARE equal"
"night IS equal to day"
Can somebody explain why the number of the verb changes? Is "atque" the key to this?
Sunt/Est (Lingua Latina)
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Re: Sunt/Est (Lingua Latina)
Yes, it's the atque, which with words of likeness and comparison can mean "as" or "than." So in the first sentence atque joins nox and dies and you need a plural verb, but in the second it modifies aequa ("as" doesn't work with "equal" in English so I like your "equal to day") so only nox is the subject and thus you get the singular verb.