Wednesday, April 3, 2024

20.02.24: hic, haec, hoc [2]

Hic, haec, hoc can also be used when referring to people, meaning he, she:

Quis est hic [Masculine]? | Who is this (person, man, boy etc.)? The sentence can also translate as 'Who is he?'

Quis est haec [Feminine]? | Who is this (person, lady, girl etc.)? The sentence can also translate as 'Who is she?'

Remember that some nouns in Latin ending in -a e.g. agricola (farmer) are feminine in grammatical gender but refer to males. With words such as these – and there are very few of them – any word that agrees with them will be masculine:

Quis est haec? | Who is this (person) / she?

> Haec est ancilla. | This (person) / she is a maidservant.

Quis est hic? | Who is this (person) / he?

> Hic est agricola. | This (person) / He is a farmer. Even though agricola is grammatically feminine, because it is referring to somebody male, all agreements are masculine.

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