Pater pallium vetus de sella detrahit et cubile tegit.

Because pater is in the nominative singular, the case Latin normally uses for the subject.

The two verbs, detrahit and tegit, are both 3rd person singular, so they naturally go with pater: the father pulls ... and covers ...

Detrahit is 3rd person singular present active indicative of detrahere.

So it means he pulls off, he drags down, or he removes. In this sentence, with de sella, it has the sense pulls/takes off from the chair.

Because pallium is a neuter second-declension noun, and in Latin neuter nominative singular and neuter accusative singular have the same form.

So:

• nominative singular: pallium
• accusative singular: pallium

Here it is the direct object of detrahit, so it is accusative even though it looks identical to the nominative.

The same thing is true of vetus here: as a neuter singular adjective, its nominative and accusative are also the same in form.

The strongest clue is that pallium vetus forms a natural noun-adjective pair: old cloak/covering.

Also, the word order helps. Latin often keeps an adjective close to the noun it modifies, and here vetus comes right after pallium.

It is true that vetus could, by form alone, also be masculine nominative singular, but in this sentence the grouping is clearly:

• pater = subject
• pallium vetus = object of detrahit

If Latin wanted to say the old father, you would more naturally expect pater vetus or vetus pater.

Sella is ablative singular because it follows the preposition de.

The preposition de takes the ablative and here means down from or off. So:

• de sella = off the chair / from the chair

With a verb like detrahere, de is very natural for removing something from a surface or support.

Because de often suggests movement down from or off of something.

That fits detrahit very well:

• de sella detrahit = pulls off the chair

A preposition like ex would more strongly suggest out of an enclosed space, which is not the idea here.

Cubile is accusative singular, the direct object of tegit.

It belongs to a third-declension neuter pattern in which the nominative singular and accusative singular are the same. So here again, the object looks like a nominative in form.

So:

• cubile = direct object of tegit
• tegit cubile = covers the bed/couch

The -e ending is just part of that noun's regular form; it does not mean ablative here.

Tegit is 3rd person singular present active indicative of tegere.

It means he covers.

So cubile tegit means he covers the bed or he covers the couch/bedplace, depending on how cubile is being translated.

Because Latin does not need to repeat the subject when it stays the same.

The sentence has one subject, pater, and then two verbs joined by et:

• detrahit
• tegit

So the sense is:

• The father pulls ... and covers ...

Latin regularly does this. Repeating pater would be unnecessary unless the writer wanted special emphasis.

Latin often leaves repeated or obvious information unstated.

The sentence explicitly says that the father pulls off the old covering and then covers the bed. The natural understanding is that he covers the bed with that same covering, even though Latin does not say it again.

If Latin wanted to make that completely explicit, it could say something like:

cubile pallio vetere tegit
= he covers the bed with the old cloak/covering

Here, though, the instrument is simply understood from context.

Because Latin relies much more on case endings and verb endings than on fixed word order.

English usually needs a stricter order like:

• The father pulls the old cloak off the chair and covers the bed.

Latin can be more flexible because the forms show the grammar:

• pater = subject
• pallium vetus = object of detrahit
• de sella = prepositional phrase
• cubile = object of tegit

So the sentence order is perfectly normal Latin. It is not random, but it is freer than English.

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

So a noun like pater can mean:

• father
• the father
• a father

Context tells you which is best in translation.

The same is true for pallium, sella, and cubile.

Either can be right, depending on context.

The Latin present tense often covers both:

• simple present: pulls, covers
• progressive present: is pulling, is covering

So this sentence could be translated naturally either way in English. Latin does not force the same distinction that English often does.