Breakdown of Puer hodie foris exire non potest, quia pluvia lente cadit.
Questions & Answers about Puer hodie foris exire non potest, quia pluvia lente cadit.
Latin has no separate words for “a” or “the”. The bare noun puer simply means “boy”, and context tells you whether to translate it as “the boy” or “a boy” in English.
Grammatically:
- puer is nominative singular, so it is the subject of potest and cadit (really of potest, since pluvia is the subject of cadit).
- It is a second-declension masculine noun.
hodie is an adverb meaning “today”.
- It is historically from hoc die (“on this day”), but in classical Latin it behaves as a fixed, indeclinable word.
- Because it is an adverb, it does not change its form for case, number, or gender.
- It normally modifies the verb, so here it tells you when the boy cannot go out: “today.”
foris here is used as an adverb meaning “outside / outdoors.”
- It is originally related to a noun meaning “door”, but in this sentence it functions like an English adverb: “outdoors.”
- Because it is an adverb, you do not need a preposition such as in or ad.
- So hodie foris exire can be taken as “to go outside today.”
Latin often uses adverbial forms (like domi “at home,” ruri “in the countryside,” foris “outside”) where English uses a prepositional phrase.
exire is a present active infinitive meaning “to go out.”
- The verb possum, posse, potui (“to be able”) always takes an infinitive to express what someone can do.
- So:
- puer non potest = “the boy is not able”
- puer foris exire non potest = “the boy is not able to go outside.”
In English with “can” we don’t say “can to go,” but in Latin you must keep the infinitive with posse: potest exire = “he can go out.”
In Latin, non normally negates the finite verb (the conjugated verb showing person/number), not the infinitive.
- potest is the finite verb (3rd person singular of posse).
- exire is an infinitive.
So:
- puer foris exire non potest literally = “the boy is not able to go outside.”
- The non belongs with potest, just as in English the negation belongs with “is not able / cannot,” not with “to go.”
Word order in Latin is flexible, so you might also see puer non potest foris exire, but the rule about non negating the finite verb is the same.
Yes, grammatically you could say puer hodie foris non exit, but it would mean something different.
- puer hodie foris exire non potest = “the boy cannot go outside today” (he is unable: maybe forbidden, sick, or the weather prevents him).
- puer hodie foris non exit = “the boy does not go outside today” (a simple fact; it doesn’t say whether he is able or not).
So the original sentence emphasizes inability by using potest + infinitive.
quia is a subordinating conjunction meaning “because.”
- It introduces the reason for the main clause:
- Main clause: Puer hodie foris exire non potest – “The boy cannot go outside today”
- Subordinate clause: quia pluvia lente cadit – “because the rain is falling slowly.”
As for quod:
- quod can also mean “because” in classical Latin, especially in more colloquial or later texts.
- quia is a very common and clear choice for “because,” especially in straightforward prose like this.
So you could often replace quia with quod for “because,” though there can be stylistic or subtle nuance differences depending on author and period.
Latin has two main ways to say it’s raining:
Impersonal verb:
- pluit = “it is raining” (literally “it rains”), with no explicit subject.
Noun + verb:
- pluvia cadit = “the rain is falling.”
In this sentence we have:
- pluvia = a noun in the nominative singular, “rain,” functioning as the subject of cadit.
- cadit = “falls.”
So quia pluvia lente cadit is literally “because the rain falls slowly.”
Using pluvia cadit instead of pluit makes the rain more clearly a thing in the sentence and allows easy modification (e.g., lente modifying cadit). It’s a bit more descriptive or picturesque than the bare impersonal pluit.
lente is an adverb meaning “slowly.”
- It comes from the adjective lentus, lenta, lentum = “slow.”
- A common way to make adverbs from first/second declension adjectives is to add -e to the stem:
- clarus → clare (“clearly, brightly”)
- laetus → laete (“happily”)
- lentus → lente (“slowly”)
Here lente modifies the verb cadit:
- pluvia lente cadit = “the rain falls slowly.”
cadit is the 3rd person singular present active form of cadere (“to fall”).
Principal parts:
- cado, cadere, cecidi, casum = “to fall.”
Agreement:
- Subject: pluvia (3rd person singular feminine noun)
- Verb: cadit (3rd person singular form)
Latin verbs do not change form for gender, only for person and number, so pluvia cadit correctly expresses:
- “the rain (it) falls” / “the rain is falling.”
Latin word order is flexible, so you could rearrange the sentence in several ways without changing the basic meaning, for example:
- Hodie puer foris exire non potest, quia pluvia lente cadit.
- Puer foris hodie exire non potest, quia lente pluvia cadit.
- Puer hodie non potest foris exire, quia pluvia lente cadit.
The original:
- Puer hodie foris exire non potest, quia pluvia lente cadit.
is very natural. Latin tends to put:
- the subject (puer) early,
- the main verb (potest) towards the end of the clause,
- and adverbs like hodie, foris, and the infinitive exire somewhere in between, according to emphasis.
All these orders remain clear because endings (like -a on pluvia, -it on cadit, -est in potest) show the grammatical roles.