Avus dicit ver sibi semper gaudium dare, quia sol clarior est.

Because after dicit, Latin often uses an indirect statement construction.

Instead of saying Grandfather says that spring always gives him joy, Latin says, more literally:

Grandfather says spring to him always to give joy.

In this construction:

• dicit = the main verb, says
• ver ... dare = the reported statement
• dare is the infinitive because it is part of that reported statement

This is a very common pattern in Latin: after verbs like say, think, know, hear, and so on, Latin often uses accusative + infinitive instead of a clause introduced by that.

There is no separate word for that here.

English says:

Grandfather says that spring always gives him joy.

But Latin normally does not use a word meaning that in this kind of sentence. Instead, it uses the accusative-and-infinitive construction:

• ver = the subject of the reported statement
• dare = the infinitive verb of the reported statement

So the idea of that is built into the grammar rather than expressed by a separate word.

Yes—the subject of the infinitive in an indirect statement should be accusative.

The reason this may look strange is that ver is a neuter third-declension noun, and its nominative and accusative singular forms are the same:

• nominative: ver
• accusative: ver

So in this sentence, ver is functioning as the accusative subject of dare, even though its form looks identical to the nominative.

Sibi is the dative singular reflexive pronoun, meaning to himself / for himself.

Here it is used with dare, because dare often takes:

• a thing given in the accusative
• a recipient in the dative

So:

• gaudium = joy (the thing given)
• sibi = to himself (the recipient)

Thus ver sibi semper gaudium dare means literally:

spring always to give joy to him/himself

It refers back to the subject of the main verb, avus.

So sibi means to himself, where himself = grandfather.

That is an important feature of reflexive pronouns in Latin. In an indirect statement after a verb like dicit, a reflexive pronoun often refers back to the person doing the saying, thinking, knowing, and so on.

So this means:

• Avus dicit ... sibi ... = Grandfather says ... to himself / to him, meaning to grandfather

It does not naturally refer to sol or to some other male person.

Because Latin is expressing the idea as give joy, not as rejoice.

• gaudium = joy
• dare = to give

So gaudium dare means to give joy or to bring joy.

This is a very natural Latin way to express the idea. English can also say Spring gives him joy, so the structure matches English fairly well here.

If Latin had used gaudet, that would mean he/she/it rejoices, which is a different construction.

Gaudium is accusative singular.

Its job is to be the direct object of dare.

So in ver sibi semper gaudium dare:

• ver = subject of the infinitive
• sibi = indirect object, to himself
• gaudium = direct object, joy
• dare = infinitive verb, to give

In other words, spring is doing the giving, joy is what is given, and to grandfather is the recipient.

Semper is an adverb meaning always, and Latin word order is much freer than English word order.

Here it sits between sibi and gaudium dare:

ver sibi semper gaudium dare

That placement is perfectly normal. It modifies the verbal idea give joy.

The sentence could be rearranged in other ways and still mean essentially the same thing, although the emphasis might shift. Latin uses word order more for style, rhythm, and emphasis than for basic grammatical function.

Quia means because and introduces the reason:

quia sol clarior est
because the sun is brighter

So the sentence gives not only the statement but also the explanation for it. Grandfather says spring gives him joy, because the sun is brighter.

Clarior is the comparative form of clarus, which means bright, clear, or famous depending on context. Here it means brighter.

The ending -ior is a common comparative ending in Latin.

So:

• clarus = bright
• clarior = brighter

It agrees with sol, which is masculine singular, so clarior is nominative masculine singular here.

Latin, like English, can sometimes use a comparative without stating both sides explicitly.

So sol clarior est means the sun is brighter, with the comparison understood from context. In this sentence, the idea is probably brighter than in winter or brighter than before.

Latin does not have to say the second half of the comparison if it is obvious enough from the context.

If Latin wanted to state it explicitly, it could use a word such as quam with the thing compared.

Because sol is the subject of est in the clause introduced by quia.

So in:

quia sol clarior est

• sol = subject, nominative singular
• clarior = predicate adjective agreeing with sol
• est = is

This part is a regular finite clause, unlike the indirect statement earlier in the sentence.

Latin has no articles—no word exactly equivalent to the or a/an.

So:

• avus can mean grandfather, a grandfather, or the grandfather
• sol can mean sun or the sun
• ver can mean spring or the spring season

You figure out the best English translation from context. Here, the sun is the natural English choice, even though Latin simply says sol.

Yes, very much so.

It contains several very common Latin features:

• a main verb of speaking: dicit
• an indirect statement: ver sibi semper gaudium dare
• a reason clause with quia
• a comparative adjective: clarior

So this sentence is useful because it brings together several structures that appear constantly in Latin prose.