Mater dicit se panem et olivas empturam esse.

This sentence uses a very common Latin construction: a main verb of saying + an indirect statement.

Breakdown:

• Mater = mother
• dicit = says
• se panem et olivas empturam esse = the indirect statement

So the structure is:

• Mater dicit = Mother says
• se ... empturam esse = that she will buy ...

In Latin, indirect statements normally use:

• a subject in the accusative
• an infinitive instead of a finite verb

So instead of English Mother says that she will buy bread and olives, Latin says, more literally:

Mother says herself bread and olives about-to-buy to be.

That sounds strange in English, but it is perfectly normal Latin.

Se is the reflexive pronoun, meaning herself/himself/themselves depending on context.

Here it refers back to Mater, the subject of dicit. So:

• Mater dicit se... = Mother says that she...

Latin uses se when the subject of the indirect statement is the same person as the subject of the main verb.

So:

• Mater dicit se empturam esse = Mother says that she will buy
• if it meant Mother says that another woman will buy, Latin would more likely use eam, not se

So se tells you that the buyer is the mother herself.

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

This is one of the most important rules in Latin syntax.

In English:

• She will buy

In Latin indirect statement after dicit:

• se ... empturam esse

Even though se is logically the subject of empturam esse, grammatically it appears in the accusative because that is how indirect statement works.

This construction is often called the accusative-and-infinitive construction.

Empturam esse is the future active infinitive of emo, emere, emi, emptum = to buy.

It is built from:

• the future participle emptura = about to buy / going to buy
• plus esse = to be

So:

• empturam esse = to be about to buy, or more naturally in English, to be going to buy / to buy in the future

In indirect statement, this usually corresponds to English will buy.

So:

• se empturam esse = that she will buy

Because the future participle must agree with the subject of the infinitive, which is se, referring to Mater.

Since Mater is:

• feminine
• singular

the participle must also be:

• feminine
• singular

So we get:

• emptura in the nominative
• empturam in the accusative, because it agrees with accusative se

If the speaker were male, you would expect:

• se ... empturum esse

If the subject were plural and feminine:

• se ... empturas esse

Agreement is a key point here.

Because emere is the present infinitive, and that would not express the same time relationship.

Compare:

• se emere = that she is buying or that she buys, depending on context
• se empturam esse = that she will buy

The action of buying is future relative to dicit. She is saying now that the buying will happen later. Latin marks that with the future infinitive.

So empturam esse is used because the buying has not happened yet at the time of speaking.

They are the direct objects of empturam esse.

She is going to buy:

• panem = bread
• olivas = olives

The verb emo takes a direct object in the accusative, so the things being bought are accusative.

That gives:

• panem = accusative singular of panis
• olivas = accusative plural of oliva

So in the sentence there are actually two accusatives doing different jobs:

• se = accusative subject of the infinitive
• panem et olivas = accusative direct objects of the infinitive

Because mater is a third-declension noun, not a first-declension noun.

Its forms are like this:

• nominative: mater
• genitive: matris

So mater is the nominative singular form meaning mother.

A learner might expect feminine nouns to look first-declension, but many important feminine family words are not:

• mater = mother
• soror = sister

So mater is simply the nominative subject of dicit.

This is more about normal usage than special grammar.

• panem = bread or a loaf of bread
• olivas = olives

In many contexts, bread can be treated as a general food item in the singular, while olives are naturally counted as plural items.

So the sentence can mean something like:

• bread and olives
• or a loaf of bread and some olives

There is no special rule in this sentence forcing one singular and the other plural; it is just a natural combination of nouns.

Only very awkwardly.

A very literal version would be:

• Mother says herself bread and olives about-to-buy to be

That shows the Latin structure, but it is not good English.

A natural translation is:

• Mother says that she will buy bread and olives.

This is a good example of why Latin learners need to understand structure, not just individual word meanings.

The buying is future relative to the saying.

So the timeline is:

1. Mater dicit = mother is speaking now
2. empturam esse = the buying will happen later

That is exactly what the future infinitive is for in indirect statement.

So if you are reading the sentence, think:

• main verb = present: she says
• infinitive phrase = future relative to that: that she will buy

This is one of the standard time relationships in Latin indirect statement:

• present infinitive = same time as the main verb
• perfect infinitive = earlier than the main verb
• future infinitive = later than the main verb