I have a question about verb dēfendo, 3. dēfendi, dēfensum
Since Indicative Active Present and Indicative Active Perfect for 1th person plural of this verb have both same form “defendimus”, how do you know which one is it?
Context is king.
But consider this sentence:
Vim defendimus vi.
Do you translate it like:
a) Force we rejected by force. (perfect)
b) Force we reject with force. (present)
If you don’t know from the context, then it’s ambiguous.
In some cases you need more than a sentence as a sufficient context.
Note, by the way, that in “Vim defendimus vi” defendimus is most likely gnomic Perfect, translatable as Present Ind.