Pastor vitulum ad arborem ligat.

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Breakdown of Pastor vitulum ad arborem ligat.

• arbor: the tree
• vitulus: the calf
• pastor: the shepherd

Questions & Answers about Pastor vitulum ad arborem ligat.

Why is pastor the subject of the sentence?

Because pastor is in the nominative case, which is the case normally used for the subject in Latin.

Here:

• pastor = nominative singular = the shepherd
• It is the one doing the action of ligat

So the basic structure is:

• pastor = subject
• ligat = verb
• vitulum = direct object

Why does vitulum end in -um?

The ending -um shows that vitulum is accusative singular.

The accusative case is commonly used for the direct object, the person or thing receiving the action of the verb.

So in this sentence:

• pastor ties
• vitulum is what he ties

Dictionary form:

• vitulus = calf
• vitulum = calf as direct object

This is a very common pattern in second-declension masculine nouns:

• nominative singular: -us
• accusative singular: -um

Why is it ad arborem and not just arborem?

Because Latin uses the preposition ad to mean , , or .