Breakdown of Mater rogat utrum tonsor etiam barbam avi cras curaturus sit.
Questions & Answers about Mater rogat utrum tonsor etiam barbam avi cras curaturus sit.
There are two clauses:
- Mater rogat = Mother asks
- utrum tonsor etiam barbam avi cras curaturus sit = whether the barber is also going to take care of grandfather’s beard tomorrow
So:
- Mater is the subject of rogat
- tonsor is the subject of curaturus sit
- barbam is the object of that second verb phrase
Latin often makes this clearer by case endings rather than strict word order.
Utrum introduces an indirect yes/no question. In English, the natural translation is whether.
So:
- Mater rogat utrum... = Mother asks whether...
You will often see utrum when Latin is reporting a question rather than asking it directly. If there were two explicit alternatives, Latin could say utrum ... an ... = whether ... or ....
Because this is an indirect question, and in Latin indirect questions normally take the subjunctive.
So although English just says is or will be, Latin uses: