Puer tonitrum audit et matrem statim vocat.

the boy

Breakdown of Puer tonitrum audit et matrem statim vocat.

• et: and
• mater: the mother
• vocare: to call

Questions & Answers about Puer tonitrum audit et matrem statim vocat.

Why is puer the subject of the sentence?

Because puer is in the nominative case, which is the case normally used for the subject in Latin. The nominative singular of this noun is puer, meaning boy.

Also, the verb endings help confirm this: both audit and vocat are third-person singular, so they match puer as the subject.

Why does matrem end in -em instead of being mater?

Because matrem is a direct object, not the subject. In Latin, a direct object usually goes in the accusative case.

For the noun mater, matris meaning mother, the forms are:

• nominative singular: mater
• accusative singular: matrem

So Latin changes the form of the noun to show its job in the sentence.

Why is tonitrum the same form as the dictionary form?

Tonitrum is a neuter noun of the second declension, and many neuter nouns have the same form in the nominative singular and accusative singular.

So even though tonitrum is the object of audit, it still appears as tonitrum, not with a different ending.

This is a very common Latin pattern: