Mater sperat amicum suum intra novem dies e carcere liberari posse.

The sentence has two parts:

• the main clause: Mater sperat = The mother hopes
• an indirect statement after sperat: amicum suum intra novem dies e carcere liberari posse

A very common Latin pattern is:

• a verb of thinking, saying, knowing, hoping, etc.
• followed by an accusative + infinitive construction

So here the mother hopes that her friend can be freed from prison within nine days.

Because in an accusative-and-infinitive construction, the subject of the infinitive goes into the accusative.

So although amicum suum is the person who is being freed, it is not the subject of the main verb sperat. The subject of sperat is mater.

You can think of it like this:

• Mater = subject of sperat
• amicum suum = subject of liberari posse, so it appears in the accusative

This is very normal Latin syntax.

Not really. It may look that way at first, because it is accusative, but its real job is different.

Amicum suum is the subject of the infinitive phrase liberari posse.

So the sentence is not saying:

• The mother hopes her friend

It is saying:

• The mother hopes [her friend to be able to be freed...]

That sounds unnatural in English, but it is a standard Latin structure.

Because the idea being expressed is to be able to be freed.

Here is the breakdown:

• liberari = to be freed, present passive infinitive of liberare
• posse = to be able, infinitive of possum

Together:

• liberari posse = to be able to be freed

In smoother English, after sperat, we usually translate it as:

• hopes that her friend can be freed
• or hopes that her friend will be able to be freed

Because the friend is receiving the action, not doing it.

• liberare = to free
• liberari = to be freed

So the sentence means that the friend is the one being released from prison.

If Latin used liberare here instead, it would mean that the friend was doing the freeing, which would not fit the meaning.

Here suum refers back to mater.

So amicum suum means:

• her own friend

This is a reflexive possessive idea. In Latin, suus, sua, suum often refers back to the subject of the clause or the governing subject in this kind of construction.

So the meaning is that the mother hopes that her own friend will be freed.

Because suus is the normal possessive used when the possessor is the same person as the subject being referred back to.

Here the person doing the hoping is mater, so suum naturally points back to her.

• suum = her own
• eius would more naturally mean his/her referring to someone else

So:

• amicum suum = her own friend
• amicum eius = his/her friend, probably someone else's friend, not the mother's

Because suum agrees with amicum, the noun it describes.

Amicum is:

• masculine
• singular
• accusative

So the possessive adjective must also be:

• masculine
• singular
• accusative

That gives suum.

This is an important Latin rule: adjectives agree with the noun they modify, not with the person who owns the thing.

It means within nine days or before nine days have passed.

So the idea is not simply during a period of nine days, but more specifically no later than nine days from now / from the relevant point.

A learner should notice two things here:

• intra is a preposition meaning within
• intra takes the accusative

That is why dies is accusative here.

Because novem is one of the Latin numerals that is indeclinable.

So novem stays novem no matter what case it is with.

The case is shown by dies, not by novem.

So in intra novem dies:

• intra requires the accusative
• dies is accusative plural
• novem stays unchanged

It is accusative plural, because it follows intra, and intra takes the accusative.

This can be a little confusing because dies has the same form in more than one case. But here the preposition tells you what case it must be.

So:

• intra
  • accusative
• therefore dies here is accusative plural

Carcere is ablative singular.

It follows the preposition e meaning out of or from. That preposition takes the ablative.

So:

• e carcere = out of prison / from prison

This is a standard use of the ablative after a preposition showing motion out from something.

Both e and ex mean basically the same thing here: out of or from.

Latin often uses:

• ex before vowels
• e often before consonants

But the choice is not purely mechanical in every text, and both forms are normal Latin.

So e carcere is perfectly ordinary.

Because Latin does not have articles like English the and a/an.

So mater can mean:

• a mother
• the mother
• sometimes just mother, depending on context

The same applies to amicum and carcere. English has to add articles when translating, but Latin does not need them.

Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because the endings show the grammatical relationships.

This order is natural:

• Mater first sets up the topic
• sperat comes early as the main verb
• the rest gives the content of what she hopes

The sentence could be rearranged in other ways, especially in poetry or for emphasis, and it would still be understandable because the forms show the grammar.

So word order in Latin often helps with emphasis and style, not just basic meaning.

That is a very good question, because English and Latin do not handle this in exactly the same way.

Formally, we have:

• liberari = present infinitive
• posse = present infinitive

But after a verb like sperat, Latin often allows the idea of hoping itself to give the sentence a future sense in translation.

So liberari posse can be translated naturally as:

• can be freed
• will be able to be freed

depending on the context and the English style you want.

In other words, the Latin form is present infinitive, but the overall meaning can still point forward from the mother's present hope.