Breakdown of Heri avia puero tunicam longam et calceos calidos dabat.
Questions & Answers about Heri avia puero tunicam longam et calceos calidos dabat.
Word-by-word:
- Heri – yesterday (adverb of time)
- avia – grandmother (nominative singular, subject)
- puero – to the boy / for the boy (dative singular, indirect object)
- tunicam – tunic (accusative singular, direct object)
- longam – long (accusative singular feminine, describing tunicam)
- et – and
- calceos – shoes (literally “shoes/boots,” accusative plural, direct object)
- calidos – warm (accusative plural masculine, describing calceos)
- dabat – was giving / used to give / gave repeatedly (3rd person singular, imperfect tense of do, dare)
So: Yesterday grandmother was giving the boy a long tunic and warm shoes.
Latin normally puts the indirect object (the person who receives something) in the dative case.
- puero is dative singular: “to the boy / for the boy.”
- If it were accusative (puerum), it would usually mean the boy is the direct object, the thing directly affected by the verb.
With the verb do, dare (to give), the pattern is:
- Subject (nominative) – the giver: avia
- Direct object (accusative) – what is given: tunicam longam et calceos calidos
- Indirect object (dative) – who receives it: puero
So avia puero tunicam dabat = “grandmother was giving a tunic to the boy.”
Using puerum would wrongly suggest “grandmother was giving the boy (to someone),” which is not the intended meaning.
Both are forms of do, dare, dedi, datum (to give), but they are different tenses:
- dedit – perfect tense, “she gave” (a completed, one-time action in the past)
- dabat – imperfect tense, “she was giving / used to give / kept giving” (ongoing, repeated, or background action in the past)
In context:
Heri avia puero tunicam longam et calceos calidos dedit.
“Yesterday grandmother gave the boy a long tunic and warm shoes.” (one finished action)Heri avia puero tunicam longam et calceos calidos dabat.
“Yesterday grandmother was giving the boy a long tunic and warm shoes.”
This can sound like describing an ongoing scene (e.g., setting the background in a story) or a repeated habit (“on that day she was in the habit of giving…”), depending on context.
Latin uses the imperfect much more systematically than English uses “was …ing.”
In Latin, the nominative case usually marks the subject of the verb.
- avia ends in -a, which is a common nominative singular ending for 1st-declension feminine nouns.
- There is only one nominative-form word in the sentence, so avia must be the subject.
So avia dabat = “the grandmother was giving.”
Even if the word order changed (for example, Heri puero tunicam longam et calceos calidos avia dabat), avia would still be the subject because of its nominative form, not because of its position.
Latin is flexible with adjective position. Adjectives can come before or after the noun they modify. Here:
- tunicam longam: both tunicam and longam are accusative singular feminine.
- calceos calidos: both calceos and calidos are accusative plural masculine.
The matching endings tell you which words go together; word order is less important than in English.
You could also say:
- longam tunicam et calidos calceos
- tunicam et calceos longos et calidos (if you adjusted endings appropriately)
The meaning stays the same. Putting the adjective after the noun is very common, but both orders are grammatically correct.
By agreement in gender, number, and case:
tunicam: accusative singular feminine
longam: accusative singular feminine
→ Same gender, number, and case, so they match.calceos: accusative plural masculine
calidos: accusative plural masculine
→ Again, they match.
In Latin, adjectives must “agree” with their nouns. So we pair words that share the same:
- Gender (masculine/feminine/neuter)
- Number (singular/plural)
- Case (nominative/accusative/dative, etc.)
Even if we scrambled the order:
- Heri avia tunicam puero longam et calidos calceos dabat
you’d still know longam = “long” tunicam, and calidos = “warm” calceos, because of agreement.
calceos is:
- from calceus, calcei (a shoe, often a kind of boot or outdoor shoe),
- accusative plural masculine.
Latin usually uses the plural for things that naturally come in pairs (like shoes). So:
- calceus – one shoe
- calcei – two shoes / shoes in general
- calceos – “(the) shoes” as direct object.
In this sentence, calceos calidos = “warm shoes.” The plural fits the idea of a pair of shoes being given.
Heri is an adverb meaning “yesterday.” Adverbs in Latin are:
- indecinable (they don’t change endings),
- quite free in position.
Placing Heri at the start:
- Heri avia puero tunicam longam et calceos calidos dabat.
puts emphasis on the time (“Yesterday, grandmother was giving…”).
You could also say:
- Avia heri puero tunicam longam et calceos calidos dabat.
- Avia puero tunicam longam et calceos calidos heri dabat.
The basic meaning stays the same. The word order slightly shifts emphasis, but doesn’t change who did what to whom.
They are both in the accusative case, which is the usual case for the direct object:
- tunicam longam – accusative singular
- calceos calidos – accusative plural
They are linked by et (“and”), forming a compound direct object:
- (she was giving) a long tunic AND warm shoes
The pattern is:
- Subject (nominative): avia
- Indirect object (dative): puero
- Direct objects (accusative): tunicam longam et calceos calidos
- Verb: dabat
Everything accusative here is part of “what she was giving.”
Latin often places the verb at the end of the sentence, but it is not a strict rule. This sentence’s order is very typical:
- Time (Heri)
- Subject (avia)
- Indirect object (puero)
- Direct object(s) (tunicam longam et calceos calidos)
- Verb (dabat)
You could say:
- Heri avia dabat puero tunicam longam et calceos calidos.
- Dabat heri avia puero tunicam longam et calceos calidos.
All are grammatically correct and mean the same thing. Changing the verb’s position may slightly affect the emphasis or rhythm, but the core meaning comes from the endings, not from order.
Latin’s imperfect tense (here dabat) covers several English past meanings:
- Continuous past: “was giving” (an ongoing action at a particular time)
- Habitual past: “used to give” or “would give” (repeated, customary action)
- Background action: setting the scene in a story.
Context decides which English version is best. Without more context, English speakers often translate dabat as:
- “was giving” if it sounds like a one-time scene yesterday,
- or “used to give” if it sounds like something she did regularly.
The Latin itself just says: an ongoing or repeated action in the past; it doesn’t force you to choose exactly which English phrasing.
Not as it stands. The roles are fixed by case endings:
- avia – nominative (subject) → “grandmother” is doing the action.
- puero – dative (indirect object) → “to the boy / for the boy.”
For “the boy was giving … to the grandmother,” you would need:
- puer (nominative) = subject
- aviae (dative) = indirect object
For example:
- Heri puer aviae tunicam longam et calceos calidos dabat.
“Yesterday the boy was giving the grandmother a long tunic and warm shoes.”
So in the original sentence, only the grandmother can be the giver and only the boy can be the recipient, because of their endings.