Pater quoque in bibliotheca libros veteres legit.

Father also reads old books in the library.

Breakdown of Pater quoque in bibliotheca libros veteres legit.

• in: in
• legere: to read
• pater: the father
• liber: the book

Questions & Answers about Pater quoque in bibliotheca libros veteres legit.

Why is pater the subject of the sentence?

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

Here, pater means father and is the one doing the action of legit.

A native English speaker may expect word order to show the subject, but in Latin, endings matter more than position. Even if the words were rearranged, pater would still be the subject as long as it stayed nominative.

Why is libros the direct object?

Libros is in the accusative plural, which is the case used for a direct object in Latin.

So libros means books, and these are the things being read.

The pattern is:

• pater = subject, nominative
• libros = direct object, accusative
• legit = reads

So the sentence structure is effectively Father also reads old books in the library.

Why does veteres end in -es instead of something like -os?

Because vetus, veteris is a third-declension adjective, not a first/second-declension adjective like bonus, bona, bonum.

Its masculine and feminine accusative plural form is veteres, so it agrees with libros in: