Confused on figured bass in minor

Question

I’m new to learning figured bass... Why is the last set of notes considered as a capital Roman numeral V instead of vi? The root note shows G.

Answer 1

The last chord shows the notes: G, A, E, C#.
If we rearrange these into a stack of thirds, we get: A, C#, E, G.
This is a dominant seventh chord: A7.
But, as the note G is in the bass it is: A7/G.

Within a key of D minor, this is represented in roman numeral notation (with the third inversion being shown with a little d) as: V7d.

In figured bass, the figure 2 implies that this is seventh chord in third inversion, the 4 is sharp as we are in the harmonic minor, and a figure 6 is redundant and so not written.

Answer 2

Dominants are always major chords. You don’t have a g chord there, but an A7, dominant in 3rd inversion (G on bass). So, G isn’t the root.

• G on bass;
• 2 refers to A;
• 4 sharp refers to C#;
• 6 refers to E (usually omitted).