Mater filiae dicit: "Nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes."

Mother says to her daughter: "Now you must help your sister."

Breakdown of Mater filiae dicit: "Nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes."

• mater: the mother
• soror: the sister
• filia: the daughter
• dicere: to say
• tuus: your
• nunc: now
• iuvare: to help
• debere: must

Questions & Answers about Mater filiae dicit: "Nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes."

In Mater filiae dicit, what case is filiae and what does it mean?

Filiae is in the dative singular of filia (daughter).

Here it functions as an indirect object:

• Mater filiae dicit = The mother says to the daughter.

Latin often uses the dative (without a preposition) where English uses to:

• dicit filiae = she says to the daughter
• dono librum puero = I give a book to the boy

Could mater filiae also mean the daughter's mother? How do I know which is meant here?

Yes, in isolation mater filiae could mean the mother of the daughter, because filiae can also be genitive singular (of the daughter).

So grammatically, you have two possible parses:

1. mater filiae (genitive) = the mother of the daughter
2. mater filiae dicit (dative) = the mother says to the daughter

In this sentence, context strongly favors the dative meaning:

• The verb dicit (says) very commonly takes a dative of the person spoken to.
• We also have direct speech after a colon; that naturally fits “the mother says to the daughter”.

So we understand it as:

• Mater filiae dicit = The mother says to the daughter,

though in real language both ideas (she is the daughter’s mother and she is speaking to her daughter) are, of course, true at the same time.

Where is the word to in “The mother says to the daughter”? I only see mater filiae dicit.

Latin usually doesn’t use a separate word for “to” in this kind of construction.
Instead, it uses the dative case to express the idea of to / for:

• filiae (dative) itself means to the daughter / for the daughter.

So:

• Mater filiae dicit
  literally: The mother says to-the-daughter
  idiomatic English: The mother says to the daughter.

What form is dicit, and what exactly does it mean?

Dicit is:

• 3rd person singular
• present tense
• active voice
• from the verb dico, dicere (to say, to tell).

So dicit = he/she/it says or he/she/it is saying.

In context:

• Mater filiae dicit = The mother says to the daughter / The mother is saying to the daughter.

Latin present tense can cover both simple present (says) and progressive (is saying).

In Nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes, why is there no separate Latin word for you?

Latin usually does not need a separate subject pronoun (I, you, he, she, we, they), because the verb ending already shows who the subject is.

• debes is 2nd person singular present of debeo.
• That ending -s tells us the subject is “you (singular)”.

So:

• iuvare debes literally: to-help you-must
  = you must help.

Latin would add an explicit tu (you) only for emphasis or contrast:

• Tu nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes = You (as opposed to someone else) must help your sister now.

What form is iuvare, and why is it not iuvas or iuvās?

Iuvare is the present active infinitive of iuvo, iuvare (to help).

• iuvare = to help (the dictionary form)
• iuvas = you help / you are helping (2nd person singular present)

We use the infinitive here because it depends on debes:

• debes iuvare = you must help, you ought to help.

So the pattern is:

• debes + infinitive = you must / ought to do X
  • laborare debes = you must work
  • dormire debes = you must sleep
  • sororem tuam iuvare debes = you must help your sister

What does debes add to the meaning? Is it more like must or should/ought to?

Debes is 2nd person singular of debeo, debere.

In this kind of sentence it expresses obligation:

• iuvare debes = you must help / you ought to help.

Nuance:

• It often feels slightly softer than a strict English must, closer to ought to / should,
• but in many contexts it can be translated as must, especially in simple learner sentences.

So:

• Nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes
  = Now you must help your sister
  or Now you ought to help your sister.

Why is sororem in the accusative case here?

Sororem is the accusative singular of soror (sister).

It is accusative because it is the direct object of the infinitive iuvare (to help):

• iuvare (quid? quem?) sororem = to help whom? → the sister.

So the structure is:

• sororem tuam iuvare debes
  • sororem tuam = direct object of iuvare
  • iuvare = infinitive verb
  • debes = you must (taking iuvare as its complement)

Why is it sororem tuam, and what does tuam agree with?

Tuam is the accusative feminine singular of the possessive adjective tuus, tua, tuum (your when speaking to one person).

It must agree with the noun it modifies in:

• gender: soror is feminine → tuam feminine
• number: soror is singular → tuam singular
• case: sororem is accusative → tuam accusative

So:

• sororem tuam = your sister (as a direct object).

Word order here is flexible:

• sororem tuam iuvare debes
• tuam sororem iuvare debes

Both are correct; the relationship is shown by agreement, not by position.

Why is it tuam and not suam for your?

Latin has a special reflexive possessive adjective suus, sua, suum (his own, her own, their own), but that’s only used for 3rd person subjects.

• 1st person: meus, mea, meum = my
• 2nd person (sing.): tuus, tua, tuum = your
• 3rd person (referring back to the subject): suus, sua, suum = his/her/its/their own

In Nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes, the subject of debes is “you” (2nd person).
So we must use the 2nd person possessive:

• tuam = your (when talking to one person)

If the sentence were about a third person, for example:

• Mater filiae dicit: “Nunc sororem suam iuvare debet.”
  = The mother says to the daughter: “Now she must help her (own) sister.”

Here suam would refer back to the third-person subject of debet.

What does nunc do in this sentence, and could it be placed somewhere else?

Nunc is an adverb meaning now.

In Nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes it modifies the whole idea of helping; it tells us when the obligation applies:

• You must help your sister now.

Latin adverbs have fairly flexible position. You could also see:

• Sororem tuam nunc iuvare debes.
• Sororem tuam iuvare nunc debes.

All would still mean essentially the same thing: the obligation to help applies now.

Can the word order inside the quotation be changed, for example to Nunc debes sororem tuam iuvare? Does that change the meaning?

Yes, the word order can be changed, and the core meaning stays the same.

All of these are grammatically correct and mean Now you must help your sister:

• Nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes.
• Nunc debes sororem tuam iuvare.
• Sororem tuam nunc iuvare debes.
• De debes nunc sororem tuam iuvare. (less usual, but still possible)

Latin word order is relatively free; emphasis can shift slightly depending on what is placed first or last, but for a learner it is safe to treat all of these as equivalent in meaning.

Why is there a colon after dicit, and what does that tell me about the structure of the sentence?

The colon in Mater filiae dicit: "Nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes." is just modern punctuation indicating direct speech.

Structurally, in Latin:

• Mater filiae dicit = The mother says to the daughter
• then we get the exact words the mother speaks:
  Nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes.

So we have:

1. A main clause: Mater filiae dicit
2. Followed by direct quotation: Nunc sororem tuam iuvare debes.

In more advanced Latin you can also express this idea in indirect speech (without quotation), e.g.:

• Mater filiae dicit eam nunc sororem suam iuvare debere.
  = The mother tells the daughter that she must now help her (own) sister.

But in your sentence, the colon simply marks that the actual spoken words are being given.