Serva sportam in officina ponit et dicit se postea donum capere velle.

Because serva is in the nominative singular, which is the form Latin normally uses for the subject.

So in:

Serva sportam in officina ponit ...

• serva = the female slave / maidservant, the subject
• ponit = puts / places

A native English speaker may be tempted to look mostly at word order, but in Latin the ending is usually more important than the position.

Because sportam is the direct object of ponit.

The verb ponit means puts or places, so we ask: puts what?
Answer: sportam.

That is why it is in the accusative singular:

• nominative: sporta
• accusative: sportam

So serva is doing the action, and sportam is receiving the action.

Because in can take either the ablative or the accusative, depending on the meaning.

• in + ablative = in / on, showing location
• in + accusative = into / onto, showing motion toward

Here the basket is being placed in the workshop, meaning location, so Latin uses:

in officina

If the sentence were emphasizing movement into the workshop, you might expect in officinam instead.

Both are 3rd person singular present active indicative verbs.

• ponit = she puts / places
• dicit = she says

They match the singular subject serva.

This is very normal Latin narrative style: one action happens, and then another:

• she puts the basket down
• and says ...

Because Latin often does not use a separate word for that after verbs of saying, thinking, knowing, and so on.

Instead, Latin usually uses an indirect statement construction:

• an accusative subject
• plus an infinitive verb

So instead of something like dicit quod... here Latin gives:

dicit se ... velle

This means something like she says that she wants...

So the idea of that is built into the grammar, not expressed by a separate word.

Because se is the reflexive pronoun, and it refers back to the subject of the main verb, here serva.

So:

dicit se postea donum capere velle

means:

she says that she ... wants to take/get a gift later

Here se = herself, in the sense the same person as the subject.

Latin uses se because the person doing the saying and the person wanting the gift are the same person.

If it meant she says that another woman wants..., Latin would use a different pronoun, such as eam, not se.

Because in a Latin indirect statement, the subject of the reported statement goes into the accusative.

So although se is logically the subject of velle, grammatically it is accusative because it is inside the construction after dicit.

That is one of the most important Latin patterns to learn:

• main verb of saying/thinking/knowing
• accusative subject
• infinitive verb

So:

• dicit = she says
• se = that she
• velle = wants

Because there are really two layers here.

1. The reported statement uses an infinitive

After dicit, Latin turns the finite verb into an infinitive in indirect statement.

So if the direct thought were something like:

Volo postea donum capere.
I want to get the gift later.

then after dicit, volo becomes velle.

2. Velle itself takes an infinitive

The verb velle means to want, and what a person wants to do is expressed by another infinitive:

• capere velle = to want to take/get

So:

• velle is the infinitive required by indirect statement
• capere is the infinitive dependent on velle

That is why both appear together.

Because donum is the direct object of capere.

Even though capere is an infinitive, it can still take its own object, just like an ordinary finite verb can.

So:

• capere = to take / get
• donum = the gift

Therefore:

• donum is accusative singular

A useful way to see the structure is:

se = subject of the indirect statement
velle = infinitive verb of the indirect statement
capere donum = the action she wants to do

Postea means later or afterward, and here it most naturally goes with the action in the indirect statement: getting/taking the gift.

So the sense is:

she says that later she wants to get the gift

or more naturally in English:

she says that she wants to get the gift later

Latin word order is flexible, so postea does not have to sit right next to the word it modifies.

A good way is to build it in stages.

Step 1

dicit = she says

Step 2

dicit se = she says that she...

Step 3

dicit se ... velle = she says that she wants...

Step 4

dicit se postea donum capere velle = she says that she wants to get the gift later

So the full sentence breaks down like this:

• Serva sportam in officina ponit
• et dicit se postea donum capere velle

= the servant/slave-girl puts the basket in the workshop and says that she wants to get the gift later.

This kind of step-by-step unpacking is very helpful whenever you meet accusative + infinitive constructions.