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Puer et puella per silvam ambulant et flumen clarum spectant.

Puer et puella per silvam ambulant et flumen clarum spectant.
The boy and the girl walk through the forest and look at the clear river.
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Questions & Answers about Puer et puella per silvam ambulant et flumen clarum spectant.

Why is it puer et puella and not something like pueri or puellae?

Puer and puella are both in the nominative singular, because each one is a single person: the boy and the girl.

Latin shows who is doing the action (the subject) by putting nouns in the nominative case. Here, you have two separate singular subjects joined by et:

  • puer = boy (nominative singular)
  • puella = girl (nominative singular)

If you said pueri et puellae, that would mean boys and girls (plural).

Why is the verb ambulant and not ambulat?

Ambulant is the 3rd person plural form of the verb ambulare (to walk).

Latin verbs agree with their subject in number (singular/plural) and person:

  • ambulat = he/she/it walks (3rd singular)
  • ambulant = they walk (3rd plural)

Since the subject is puer et puella (boy and girl = they), the verb must be plural: ambulant.

Why is it per silvam and not per silva?

The preposition per (through) in Latin always takes the accusative case.

  • silva = forest (nominative singular)
  • silvam = forest (accusative singular)

Because per needs the accusative, you get per silvam = through the forest. Using per silva would be grammatically wrong.

What case is silvam, and what is its function in the sentence?

Silvam is accusative singular.

Here it is the object of the preposition per. In Latin:

  • Prepositions like per, ad, in (with motion), etc., often take an accusative object.
  • So per silvam is a prepositional phrase meaning through the forest.

It is not the direct object of the verb; it belongs with per.

Why is per silvam placed before ambulant? Could it go somewhere else?

Latin word order is fairly flexible compared to English. The meaning is mostly carried by endings, not by position.

Per silvam ambulant is a natural order: prepositional phrase before the verb. But you could also see:

  • Puer et puella ambulant per silvam.
  • Per silvam puer et puella ambulant.

All of these would still mean The boy and the girl walk through the forest, just with slightly different emphasis. Beginners are usually taught that the verb often comes near the end, but this is a tendency, not a strict rule.

Why is there no word for “the” in puer et puella per silvam ambulant et flumen clarum spectant?

Classical Latin has no articles at all — no the and no a/an.

Whether we translate puer as the boy or a boy depends entirely on context in Latin. Here, the sentence is naturally translated:

  • The boy and the girl walk through the forest and look at the clear river.

But structurally it could also be A boy and a girl… if the context required that.

Why is flumen used without a preposition like “at” in flumen clarum spectant?

In Latin, some verbs that take a preposition in English take a direct object in the accusative instead.

Spectare means to look at / to watch and usually:

  • takes a direct object (accusative) without a preposition.

So:

  • flumen (accusative) = the thing being looked at
  • flumen clarum spectant = they look at the clear river

Literally, it is they watch the clear river, not they look at to the river; the "at" is built into the meaning of spectare.

What case is flumen, and how do we know?

In this sentence, flumen is accusative singular, functioning as the direct object of spectant.

Flumen is a neuter 3rd declension noun. For neuter nouns in the 3rd declension:

  • nominative singular = flumen
  • accusative singular = flumen (same form)

So it looks the same in nominative and accusative; we know it is accusative here because:

  • It follows a verb that needs a direct object (spectant)
  • It is being looked at, not doing the looking.
Why does the adjective clarum end in -um, and how does it agree with flumen?

Clarum is the adjective clarus, clara, clarum (clear, bright). Adjectives in Latin must agree with their nouns in:

  • Gender
  • Number
  • Case

Flumen is:

  • neuter
  • singular
  • accusative

So clarum is put in the neuter singular accusative form to match it:

  • flumen clarum = clear river, with full agreement:
    • neuter + neuter
    • singular + singular
    • accusative + accusative
Why is the adjective placed after the noun: flumen clarum instead of clarum flumen?

Latin adjectives are usually more flexible in position than in English. The usual, neutral order is:

  • noun + adjective → flumen clarum

You can say clarum flumen, and it is still correct. Sometimes putting the adjective before the noun can add a little emphasis or style, but both orders are common and grammatical.

For a beginner, it is enough to know:

  • Both flumen clarum and clarum flumen mean clear river.
  • The endings, not the word order, show the grammatical relationship.
What does the second et do in ambulant et flumen clarum spectant?

Latin et means and, and here it is used twice with two different jobs:

  1. puer et puella → joins two subjects (boy and girl).
  2. ambulant et … spectant → joins two verbs (walk and look at).

So the structure is:

  • Puer et puella (boy and girl)
  • ambulant et spectant (walk and look)

Each et simply links two parallel elements: first nouns, then verbs.

Does per silvam go with both verbs (walk and look), or only with ambulant?

By default, per silvam most naturally goes with ambulant only:

  • They walk through the forest and (then) look at the clear river.

If the writer wanted to say that they both walk through and look through the forest, they would typically repeat or reposition things to make that clearer, for example:

  • Puer et puella per silvam ambulant et per silvam spectant.

In the given sentence, it is clearest to read:

  • Per silvam modifies ambulant (walk through the forest).
  • Flumen clarum is the object of spectant (look at the clear river).