Puella parva aviam audit, quae cantat, et lucernam obscuram spectat.

The little girl listens to her grandmother, who is singing, and looks at the dim lamp.

Breakdown of Puella parva aviam audit, quae cantat, et lucernam obscuram spectat.

• puella: the girl
• et: and
• spectare: to look at
• audire: to listen to
• parvus: little
• avia: the grandmother
• qui: who
• lucerna: the lamp
• cantare: to sing
• obscurus: dim

Questions & Answers about Puella parva aviam audit, quae cantat, et lucernam obscuram spectat.

Why is puella in one form and aviam and lucernam in another? What cases are these, and what roles do they have in the sentence?

Puella is in the nominative singular: it is the subject of both verbs audit and spectat.

Aviam and lucernam are both in the accusative singular: they are the direct objects of the verbs.

• Puella parva = the little girl (subject: who is doing the actions?)
• aviam = grandmother (object of audit: whom does she hear?)
• lucernam obscuram = the dim lamp (object of spectat: what does she look at?)

Latin shows subject vs. object mainly through case endings, not word order. Here:

• -a → usually nominative singular (1st declension)
• -am → usually accusative singular (1st declension)

What does parva agree with, and why is it in that particular form?

Parva agrees with puella:

• Both are feminine
• Both are singular
• Both are nominative

In Latin, adjectives must agree with the noun they modify in gender, number, and case.

So:

• puella parva = the little girl

The form parva (ending -a) matches puella (also -a in the nominative singular feminine). If you changed the case of puella, parva would change with it:

• puellae parvae (genitive/dative/nom. pl., etc.) and so on, depending on context.

Why is obscuram in a different form from parva, and what does obscuram agree with?

Obscuram is an adjective modifying lucernam:

• lucernam = feminine, singular, accusative
• obscuram = feminine, singular, accusative

So:

• lucernam obscuram = the dim (or dark) lamp

It is different from parva because it is in a different case:

• parva is nominative (with puella, the subject)
• obscuram is accusative (with lucernam, the object)

Again, the rule is: adjectives agree with their own noun in gender, number, and case, not with every noun in the sentence.

What does quae refer to here – the girl or the grandmother?

Grammatically, quae could refer to either puella or aviam, because:

• quae = feminine, singular, nominative
• Both puella and aviam are feminine singular

However, Latin usually takes the nearest suitable antecedent, and the meaning of the sentence supports this. The nearest feminine singular noun is aviam, so:

• aviam … quae cantat = the grandmother, who is singing

So the sentence means: The little girl hears her grandmother, who is singing, and she looks at the dim lamp.

Context and proximity make aviam the most natural antecedent.

Why is quae in the nominative case when aviam is accusative?

Relative pronouns (quae, qui, quem, etc.) follow a special rule:

• They agree with their antecedent in gender and number.
• Their case is determined by their function inside the relative clause, not by the case of the antecedent.

Here:

• Antecedent: aviam (fem. sg.)
• Relative pronoun: quae (fem. sg. nom.), subject of cantat

Inside the clause quae cantat:

• quae is the subject of cantat, so it must be nominative.

Even though aviam is accusative in the main clause (object of audit), quae is nominative because it is the subject of its own verb.

What kind of clause is quae cantat, and why does it have commas around it?

Quae cantat is a relative clause introduced by the relative pronoun quae.

Functionally, it is:

• Non-restrictive/appositive: it gives extra information about aviam, not needed to identify which grandmother.
• It is like saying in English: the grandmother, who is singing, …

Latin punctuation is a later editorial convention, but in modern practice, non-restrictive relative clauses are often set off with commas, just as in English.

Why is audit used with a direct object (aviam)? Doesn't English often say "listen to"?

Latin audio, audire typically means “to hear” or “to listen to” and it can take a direct object without a preposition:

• aviam audit = she hears (or listens to) her grandmother

In English:

• hear someone uses a direct object (no preposition)
• listen to someone uses to

Latin doesn’t need a preposition here; the verb directly governs the accusative (aviam). You could translate flexibly as:

• The little girl hears her grandmother…
• The little girl listens to her grandmother…

Why does et appear where it does, and what exactly is it connecting?

Et means “and” and is connecting two verbs (and their objects) that share the same subject:

• Puella parva aviam audit = The little girl hears her grandmother
• [puella] lucernam obscuram spectat = [the girl] looks at the dim lamp

So structurally:

• Puella parva aviam audit, … et lucernam obscuram spectat.

The subject puella parva is understood with both verbs audit and spectat. Latin does not need to repeat the subject; one subject can govern several verbs joined by et.

Why is spectat used with lucernam obscuram in the accusative? Is this the same pattern as aviam audit?

Yes, it is the same basic pattern:

• specto, spectare = to look at, to watch
• It regularly takes a direct object in the accusative.

Here:

• spectat = she looks at
• lucernam obscuram = the dim lamp (direct object in accusative)

So, just like aviam audit (she hears her grandmother), we have lucernam obscuram spectat (she looks at the dim lamp).

Why are the verbs audit, cantat, and spectat all in the present tense, and how should I translate that?

All three verbs are 3rd person singular present indicative active:

• audit = she hears / is hearing
• cantat = she sings / is singing
• spectat = she looks at / is looking at

Classical Latin present tense usually covers both simple and progressive English presents. So you can translate naturally as either:

• The little girl hears her grandmother, who is singing, and looks at the dim lamp.
• or
• The little girl is hearing/listening to her grandmother, who is singing, and is looking at the dim lamp.

Both are valid; choose whatever sounds more natural in context.