Ciniflo cirrum et cincinnum spectat.

The subject is Ciniflo.

You can tell because:

• spectat is a 3rd person singular verb, so it needs one singular subject.
• cirrum and cincinnum are in the accusative, so they are the things being looked at, not the doer of the action.

So the basic structure is:

Ciniflo = subject
cirrum et cincinnum = direct objects
spectat = verb

A lot of beginner Latin nouns do have a nominative singular ending in -us, but not all of them.

Ciniflo belongs to a different noun pattern, so its nominative singular happens to end in -o. In other words, you should not assume that a subject must look like -us. Latin has several declensions, and subjects can have many different nominative endings.

So the important idea is:

• subject = usually nominative
• but the shape of the nominative depends on the noun

They are both accusative singular.

They are accusative because they are the direct objects of spectat. They answer the question whom? or what? after the verb:

• spectat what?
• cirrum et cincinnum

No. In this sentence, they are masculine nouns in the accusative singular.

This is a very common beginner question, because -um can signal different things in Latin:

• 2nd declension masculine accusative singular: for example, a noun whose dictionary form ends in -us
• 2nd declension neuter nominative singular
• 2nd declension neuter accusative singular

So you cannot decide gender from -um alone. You have to know the dictionary form of the noun. Here, cirrum and cincinnum are accusative forms of masculine nouns.

Because Latin spectare can take a direct object without a preposition.

In English, we often say looks at. In Latin, the verb itself can govern the accusative directly:

• spectat cirrum
• literally, something like looks the curl
• but naturally translated as looks at the curl

So this is a case where English uses a preposition, but Latin does not need one.

Spectat tells you several things at once:

• present tense = the action is happening now
• active voice = the subject is doing the action
• indicative mood = it is a plain statement
• 3rd person singular = he/she/it or a single noun as subject

The ending -t is the key sign of 3rd person singular in the present tense.

Because Latin usually does not need to state the subject pronoun when the verb already makes it clear.

The ending of spectat already tells you the subject is 3rd person singular, so Latin can simply say spectat without adding he or she.

That is very normal in Latin. Subject pronouns are often omitted unless they are needed for emphasis or contrast.

Because Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order.

A very common Latin pattern is to put the verb near the end, especially in simple statements. So Ciniflo cirrum et cincinnum spectat is perfectly normal.

Latin can do this because the endings show the grammatical roles:

• Ciniflo = subject
• cirrum et cincinnum = objects
• spectat = verb

So word order can vary more freely than in English without causing as much confusion.

Because the two nouns joined by et are not the subject. They are the objects.

The verb agrees with the subject, and the subject here is just Ciniflo, which is singular. Therefore the verb is singular too: spectat.

If the two nouns joined by et were the subject, then you would expect a plural verb.

Et simply means and.

It joins cirrum and cincinnum into one coordinated object phrase:

• cirrum et cincinnum = and

So both nouns are being looked at.

Latin also has other ways to express and, such as -que, but et is the straightforward standalone word.

Because Classical Latin has no articles.

That means Latin does not have separate words corresponding exactly to English the and a/an. Whether you translate a noun as a or the depends on context.

So a Latin noun by itself can often be understood in English in more than one way, depending on what the sentence is doing.

In Classical Latin, every c is pronounced as a hard k sound, never like English s.

So the important point is:

• Ciniflo begins with k
• cirrum begins with k
• cincinnum begins with k
• spectat has k in the middle

A rough English-style approximation is:

ki-ni-flo kir-rum et kin-kin-num spek-tat

Also, the doubled consonants in words like cirrum and cincinnum were pronounced more strongly than single consonants.