Avia dicit ex una vite multos racemos colligi posse.

Grandmother says that many clusters of grapes can be gathered from one vine.

Breakdown of Avia dicit ex una vite multos racemos colligi posse.

• multus: many
• posse: to be able
• dicere: to say
• avia: the grandmother

Questions & Answers about Avia dicit ex una vite multos racemos colligi posse.

What is the basic structure of this sentence?

The sentence has:

• a main clause: Avia dicit = Grandmother says
• an indirect statement after dicit: ex una vite multos racemos colligi posse

A very literal breakdown is:

• Avia = grandmother
• dicit = says
• ex una vite = from one vine
• multos racemos = many clusters / bunches
• colligi = to be gathered
• posse = to be able

So Latin is literally saying something like:

Grandmother says many bunches to be able to be gathered from one vine.

That sounds awkward in English, but it is normal Latin indirect statement structure.

Why is dicit followed by infinitives instead of a clause with that?

Because Latin commonly uses the accusative-and-infinitive construction for indirect statement.

In English, we say:

• She says that many bunches can be gathered.

In Latin, after a verb of saying, thinking, knowing, hearing, and so on, Latin often says:

• She says many bunches to be able to be gathered.

That is exactly what is happening here:

• dicit = she says
• multos racemos colligi posse = that many bunches can be gathered

So instead of a separate that-clause, Latin uses an infinitive construction.