Mater dicit panem tenerum infanti meliorem esse quam panem siccum.

Yes:

• Mater: nominative singular, the subject of dicit
• dicit: 3rd person singular present active of dico, says
• panem: accusative singular of panis
• tenerum: accusative singular masculine, modifying panem
• infanti: dative singular of infans
• meliorem: accusative singular masculine of the comparative adjective melior
• esse: present infinitive of sum, to be
• quam: than
• panem siccum: accusative singular, noun + adjective, the second item being compared

So a lot of the sentence hangs together through agreement: panem tenerum and panem siccum, and meliorem also matches the first panem.

The sentence has:

• a main clause: Mater dicit
• an indirect statement after it: panem tenerum infanti meliorem esse quam panem siccum

After verbs of saying, thinking, knowing, and so on, Latin very often uses an accusative + infinitive construction for reported statements.

So the pattern is:

Mater dicit + [something in the accusative] [infinitive]

Here, the reported statement is that soft bread is better for the infant than dry bread.

Because in Latin indirect statement, the subject of the reported idea goes into the accusative.

In English we say:

• Mother says that soft bread is better...

In Latin, instead of that soft bread is, Latin says something more like:

• Mother says soft bread to be better...

That is why panem tenerum is accusative. It is the logical subject of esse, but in this construction that subject is put in the accusative.

If you turned it into a direct statement, it would become nominative:

• Panis tener infanti melior est quam panis siccus.

Because esse is the infinitive needed for the indirect statement.

Latin often reports statements with:

• accusative subject
  • infinitive verb

Here the verb inside the reported statement is is, so Latin uses the infinitive esse = to be.

So:

• direct statement: panis tener ... melior est
• indirect statement after dicit: panem tenerum ... meliorem esse

That switch from est to esse is completely normal.

Because meliorem agrees with panem.

Melior, melius means better. Here it is an adjective, not an adverb, so it must match the noun it describes or predicates about.

Since panem is:

• masculine
• singular
• accusative

the comparative adjective must also be:

• masculine
• singular
• accusative

So we get meliorem.

Why not melior?
Because melior would be nominative singular, and this sentence needs accusative inside the indirect statement.

Why not melius?
Because melius is neuter singular or an adverbial form, and panis is masculine.

Infanti is a dative singular, and here it means something like for the infant.

This is often called a dative of reference or dative of advantage. The idea is:

• soft bread is better for the infant than dry bread

So infanti is not the thing being compared, and it is not the subject of esse. It marks the person whose interest or benefit is involved.

In principle, yes: dico can take a dative person, so infanti could sometimes mean to the infant.

But in this sentence, it is most naturally understood with meliorem esse:

• better for the infant

Why?

1. The meaning fits that reading.
2. Its position near meliorem esse encourages that reading.
3. The sentence is about what kind of bread is better, so the dative fits the comparison well.

So although the form itself could be ambiguous in isolation, here it is understood as for the infant, not to the infant.

Because after quam, Latin normally puts the second item of the comparison in the same case as the corresponding first item.

Here the first compared thing is panem tenerum, which is accusative because it is inside indirect statement. So the second compared thing is also accusative:

• panem tenerum ... quam panem siccum

If the sentence were a direct statement, both would be nominative:

• Panis tener infanti melior est quam panis siccus.

So the accusative here is not because quam always takes accusative. It is because the noun after quam matches the case of the noun it corresponds to.

Yes, you can understand an omitted esse.

Latin often leaves out repeated words when they are obvious. So the full sense is roughly:

• panem tenerum infanti meliorem esse quam panem siccum esse

But Latin does not need to repeat the second esse, because the comparison already makes the meaning clear.

This kind of omission is very common.

Latin has two common ways to express comparison with a comparative adjective:

1. comparative + quam
2. comparative + ablative of comparison

So both of these are possible in sense:

• meliorem esse quam panem siccum
• meliorem esse pane sicco

The sentence you have uses the quam construction. With quam, the second term usually matches the case of the first corresponding term. With the other construction, the second term goes into the ablative.

For a learner, quam is often easier to recognize at first because it works more like English than.

Because of agreement.

Latin adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in:

• gender
• number
• case

So:

• panem tenerum = accusative singular masculine + accusative singular masculine
• panem siccum = accusative singular masculine + accusative singular masculine

That matching tells you that:

• tenerum modifies the first panem
• siccum modifies the second panem

Latin word order is flexible, but agreement helps you see what belongs together.

It would be:

Panis tener infanti melior est quam panis siccus.

That is useful because it shows exactly what changed when the sentence became indirect:

• panis → panem
• tener → tenerum
• melior → meliorem
• est → esse
• panis siccus → panem siccum

So the sentence is a very good example of how Latin turns a direct statement into an indirect one after dicit.

Not in the same rigid way as in English.

Latin word order is fairly flexible because the endings show the grammatical relationships. So the meaning does not depend entirely on position.

The given order is natural and clear:

• Mater dicit
• then the accusative subject panem tenerum
• then the dative infanti
• then the predicate + infinitive meliorem esse
• then the comparison quam panem siccum

A different order could still be grammatical, but this version keeps related ideas close together and is easy to follow.