Why is this a correct sentence: "Iūlius nōn sōlus, sed cum magnā familiā habitat"?

Question

In Familia Romana Cap. 5 there is this sentence:

Iūlius nōn sōlus, sed cum Aemiliā et cum magnā familiā in vīllā habitat.

I'm struggling to understand why this sentence is grammatically correct. Since sōlus is an adjective, it cannot be used to modify habitat, but why don't we need a verb for the sentence/clause before sed? I would expect something like

Iūlius nōn sōlus est, sed cum Aemiliā et cum magnā familiā in vīllā habitat.

or the adverb form of sōlus to be used.

The only explanation I can think of is that Latin is more flexible in this case and the verb est can be omitted in the first sentence/clause. Could someone help me understand this?

Answer 1

Although it's possible that the verb est has been omitted here, as Adam says, I find it more likely that the sentence really is equivalent to Iūlius nōn sōlus habitat, sed cum Aemiliā et cum magnā familiā in vīllā habitat. Latin regulary uses adjectives in the nominative modifying the subject (and also in the accusative modifying the direct object) where English would more naturally use adverbs modifying the verb, as explained in one of the answers to another question.

Answer 2

Actually, this is not so much a case of missing esse, but of praedicative use of an adjectival word. Adjectives (solus), but also participles, can be used such that they agree with a nominal group (Iulius), while telling you something about the praedicate as a whole (Iulius non [habitat]), not just about the nominal group. This is also possible in other Indo-European languages:

She arrived late/crying/alone.

In English, it is not so easy to see whether a word is an adjective or an adverb, but the construction used is the same as in English. The subject she was alone, but she also arrived in a manner characterised as being alone. So alone tells you something about her, but also about her manner of arriving.

Subject and object complements are very common (trivial) cases of praedicative adjectives, in Latin, in English, and in many other languages:

Iulius est solus.

"The lone Iulius is": this is clearly wrong and not how the sentence was intended.
"Iulius is alone": this is what it means.

So the adjective solus is not used attributively, i.e. it is not used to only modify the nominal group Iulius like any standard use of an adjective. Instead, it tells us something about how Iulius is; it tells you something about the praedicate Iulius est as a whole. Like any praedicative adjective, it still also tells you something about Iulius himself, in addition to modifying the praedicate.

In English, we often indicate praedicative use by placing the adjectival word after the nominal group it modifies, as in my first example, She arrived...

Answer 3

Welcome to the community!

Est can be ommitted if the meaning is clear. You might want to check out this post about omitting esse, as it's another form of the same verb. In the case of this sentence, it's very clear that the verb is est from both the clause and with the full sentence.

Answer 4

In proverbs and sentences, the verb sum is often omitted both as a copula and as a verbal predicate. Font: years of latin in italian schools. Ps: when citing a verb it should be named in indicative present first person singular because that's where we study the root of the verb. and from there we study the endings and irregular verbs. It's a Englishism to say the verb esse. In the vocabulary there is for first indicative present first and second singular, then past first person singular and only at the end the infinite.