Puer tota nocte tussit et matrem vocat.

Because puer is in the nominative singular, the case normally used for the subject.

So in Puer tota nocte tussit et matrem vocat, puer means the boy and is the one doing the actions: coughing and calling.

The other key forms help confirm this:

• matrem is accusative, so it is the object, not the subject
• tussit and vocat are both third-person singular verbs, matching puer

Because puer is one of the common second-declension masculine nouns that end in -er instead of -us.

Compare:

• servus = slave
• amicus = friend
• puer = boy

So puer is still a normal masculine noun, just with a different nominative singular ending. Its genitive is pueri, which shows it belongs to the second declension.

Yes, here tussit is a present tense form.

That can be confusing, because many Latin perfect tense forms also end in -it. But the verb here is tussire (to cough), a fourth-conjugation verb, and its third-person singular present is tussit = he/she coughs.

So:

• tussire = to cough
• tussit = he/she coughs

This is a good reminder that you cannot identify tense from -it alone; you have to know the verb.

Because they belong to different conjugations.

• tussit comes from tussire and is a fourth-conjugation present form
• vocat comes from vocare and is a first-conjugation present form

In the third-person singular present:

• first conjugation often has -at: vocat
• second conjugation often has -et
• third conjugation often has -it or a short-vowel pattern depending on the verb
• fourth conjugation often has -it: tussit

So the subject is the same, and the tense is the same, but the conjugation changes the ending.

Tota nocte is a time expression meaning all night or throughout the whole night.

• nocte = by night / at night / during the night
• tota = whole, entire, agreeing with nocte

Together, tota nocte gives the time during which the action happens.

This is a very common question.

Latin often uses the ablative for certain time expressions, especially with words like night, parts of the day, and similar expressions. So tota nocte means throughout the whole night / all night.

You may also see totam noctem, with the accusative, for the whole night as a duration of time. Both patterns exist in Latin, though they can carry slightly different shades of meaning depending on context and author.

For a beginner, the safest takeaway is:

• tota nocte = a normal Latin way to say all night

Because tota must agree with nocte.

Latin adjectives agree with the nouns they describe in:

• gender
• number
• case

Here:

• nox, noctis is a feminine noun
• nocte is ablative singular
• so the adjective must also be feminine ablative singular

That gives tota nocte = throughout the whole night.

Because matrem is the direct object of vocat.

The verb vocare means to call, and the person being called is put in the accusative:

• matrem vocat = he calls his mother / he calls for his mother

So:

• puer = subject
• vocat = verb
• matrem = direct object

Latin often leaves out possessive words like his, her, or their when the meaning is already obvious from context.

So matrem vocat naturally means he calls his mother, not someone else’s mother, unless the context suggests otherwise.

If Latin wanted to be more explicit or emphatic, it could say:

• matrem suam vocat = he calls his own mother

But very often suam is unnecessary.

The Latin present tense can cover several English possibilities depending on context:

• calls
• is calling
• sometimes idiomatically calls for

So matrem vocat could be understood in natural English as:

• he calls his mother
• he is calling his mother
• he calls for his mother

The exact English wording depends on the situation, but the Latin form itself is just a straightforward present tense.

Because Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order.

English depends heavily on position:

• The boy calls his mother

Latin depends much more on case endings:

• puer is nominative, so it is the subject
• matrem is accusative, so it is the object

That means Latin can move words around more freely without changing the basic meaning.

In this sentence, the order:

• Puer tota nocte tussit et matrem vocat

is perfectly normal Latin. The time phrase tota nocte is placed between the subject and the first verb, and matrem is placed before vocat, but the endings make the roles clear.

Because the same subject, puer, naturally carries over to both verbs.

So Latin does not need to say:

• Puer tussit et puer matrem vocat

That would be unnecessary unless the writer wanted special emphasis.

As written, the sentence means:

• The boy coughs all night and calls his mother

with puer understood as the subject of both tussit and vocat.