Adversarius me provocat.

Because me is the accusative form of the first-person pronoun, and Latin uses the accusative for a direct object.

In this sentence, the opponent is doing the action, and I am receiving it, so Latin uses me = me.

• ego = I (subject form, nominative)
• me = me (object form, accusative)

So:

• ego provoco = I challenge
• adversarius me provocat = the opponent challenges me

We know because adversarius is in the nominative singular, which is the case normally used for the subject of the sentence.

Also, me is clearly accusative, so it is the object, not the subject.

So the roles are:

• adversarius = subject
• me = direct object
• provocat = verb

Even if the word order changed, the case endings would still show who is doing what.

Provocat is a verb in the:

• present tense
• active voice
• indicative mood
• third person singular

That means it means he/she/it challenges or is challenging.

Here, since the subject is adversarius, it means:

the opponent challenges

The ending -t is the normal ending for a third-person singular present active verb.

The dictionary form is provoco, and the full principal parts are often given as:

provoco, provocare, provocavi, provocatus

That tells you it is a first-conjugation verb.

So:

• provocat = he/she/it challenges
• dictionary form = provoco = I challenge

A learner should get used to recognizing that Latin verbs in a sentence are often not shown in their dictionary form.

Latin does not have articles like English the or a/an.

So adversarius can mean:

• an opponent
• the opponent
• sometimes just opponent

The context tells you which English article is best. English has to add one, but Latin does not.

Yes. Latin word order is much more flexible than English word order because the endings show the grammatical function.

So all of these could mean basically the same thing:

• Adversarius me provocat
• Me adversarius provocat
• Provocat me adversarius

However, different orders can change the emphasis.

The order here is a very natural one: subject + object + verb. Latin often likes to place the verb near the end, though this is not a strict rule.

Because Latin usually does not need a subject pronoun when the verb ending already tells the person and number.

In provocat, the ending -t already tells you the verb is third person singular: he/she/it challenges.

Since the sentence already has adversarius, there is no need to add a pronoun like he.

Latin often leaves subject pronouns out unless they are needed for emphasis or contrast.

It can be thought of as both historically, but here it is being used as a noun meaning opponent or adversary.

Many Latin words that began as adjectives can be used on their own as nouns. In this sentence, adversarius stands by itself and functions as a noun.

Its basic idea is something like opposing or hostile, and from that it comes to mean opponent.

Adversarius is a second-declension masculine noun.

Its nominative singular ends in -us, which is very common for second-declension masculine nouns.

Some useful forms are:

• nominative singular: adversarius
• accusative singular: adversarium
• genitive singular: adversarii
• nominative plural: adversarii

In this sentence, the nominative singular adversarius shows that one male opponent, or one grammatically masculine opponent, is the subject.

In a common classroom Classical Latin pronunciation, it would be approximately:

ad-ver-SAH-ri-us meh pro-vo-kat

More precisely:

• adversarius: stress on sa
• me: pronounced meh or more accurately a long meh/ay sound
• provocat: stress on vo

A few Classical pronunciation notes:

• c is always hard, like k
• v is often pronounced like English w
• so provocat can sound more like pro-wo-kat

In Ecclesiastical Latin, pronunciation would be somewhat different, especially for v.