Pater filio pecuniam committit.

In this sentence, pater is the subject because it is in the nominative case, the case normally used for the subject of a verb.

• pater = nominative singular, father
• filio = dative singular, to/for the son
• pecuniam = accusative singular, money
• committit = he entrusts / commits

Latin relies much more on word endings than on word order to show who is doing what.

Filio is dative because it marks the indirect object: the person to whom something is entrusted.

With a verb like committere, Latin often works like this:

• the thing entrusted goes in the accusative
• the person receiving it goes in the dative

So:

• pecuniam = the thing entrusted
• filio = the son, to the son

Because it is the direct object of committit. It is the thing directly affected by the action.

Here the father is entrusting money, so pecunia becomes pecuniam in the accusative singular.

A very literal breakdown would be:

• pater = father
• filio = to the son
• pecuniam = money
• committit = entrusts

Not all second-declension masculine nouns end in -us. Some end in -er, and pater is one of them.

Its basic forms are:

• nominative singular: pater
• genitive singular: patris

So pater is simply the normal dictionary form for father. It is an irregular-looking but very common noun.

Committit is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense
• active voice
• indicative mood

So it means he entrusts, he commits, or depending on context he is entrusting.

The subject he is already built into the verb ending -t, so Latin does not need a separate word for he.

Not always. This is an important vocabulary point.

In this sentence, committit means something like:

• entrusts
• places in someone’s care
• hands over for safekeeping

That is one common meaning of committere.

English commit has many meanings, and Latin committere also has several. So you should learn it by context, not assume it always matches the English cognate exactly.

Classical Latin has no articles like English the or a/an.

So pater can mean:

• the father
• a father

and filio can mean:

• to the son
• to a son

The exact sense depends on context. In a simple teaching sentence, English usually supplies whichever article sounds most natural.

Yes. Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because the cases show each word’s role.

So all of these could express essentially the same basic idea:

• Pater filio pecuniam committit
• Pater pecuniam filio committit
• Pecuniam pater filio committit
• Filio pater pecuniam committit

However, changing the order can change the emphasis.

For example:

• putting pecuniam early may emphasize the money
• putting filio early may emphasize the son
• putting committit at the end is very common in Latin prose

Because filio is the dative singular form of filius.

Its relevant forms are:

• nominative singular: filius = son
• dative singular: filio = to/for the son
• dative plural: filiis = to/for the sons

So if the sentence meant to the sons, it would be filiis, not filio.

Because pecuniam is the accusative singular of pecunia.

Compare:

• nominative singular: pecunia = money
• accusative singular: pecuniam
• accusative plural: pecunias

So pecuniam means money as a singular noun here. Depending on context, English may still translate it in a mass-noun way rather than as one money.

Yes, pecunia is grammatically singular here. But that does not mean a single coin. Like English money, it often refers to wealth or funds as a whole.

So pecuniam committit means he entrusts money or he entrusts some money, not necessarily one individual piece of currency.

Yes, that is a very natural English rendering.

Latin uses:

• dative for the person entrusted
• accusative for the thing entrusted

English can express that in more than one way:

• The father entrusts money to the son
• The father entrusts the son with money

Both are reasonable translations of the Latin structure.

A classical-style pronunciation would be approximately:

PAH-ter FEE-lee-oh peh-KOO-nee-am kohm-MIT-tit

A few helpful points:

• c is always hard, like k
• io in filio is pronounced separately, not like English fil-yo
• tt in committit is pronounced as a real double consonant, if you want a more careful classical pronunciation

A more detailed classical pronunciation could be represented as:

pah-ter fee-lee-oh peh-koo-nee-ahm kom-mit-tit