Latin translation question

[Nestof3]

Filius feminae gladium nautae portat.

 

My son translated it: The son carries the woman's sailor's sword.

 

Aside from being odd, is there a reason this cannot be a true translation?

 

Thanks!

[Rivka]

I'd translate that as "The woman's son carries a sword to the sailor."

 

It's true that word order is not that important in Latin, but a sentence order that is technically allowable may still never be used, or may be much less preferable than another order.

 

Latin modifiers usually follow the noun they're modifying. If the sentence meant "the son carries the woman's sailor's sword," you'd have woman's two words away from sailor's, the word it's supposedly modifying, with sword, the word that sailor's is supposedly modifying, in the middle. Why would the writer do that? It makes much more sense in this sentence for feminae to modify filius, and for nautae to be the indirect object and in the dative case.

 

So his version requires a very weird word order in Latin, producing a sentence that's kind of odd in English. The alternative is a straightforward sentence that follows a conventional word order in Latin and makes sense in English.

[Nestof3]

We haven't learned prepositions yet.

 

The book translates it as: The son if the woman carries the sword of the sailor.

 

So, I can explain to him that since filius and feminae are next to each other, they go together, and likewise with gladium and nautae?

 

Thanks!

[Bluegoat]

We haven't learned prepositions yet.

 

The book translates it as: The son if the woman carries the sword of the sailor.

 

So, I can explain to him that since filius and feminae are next to each other, they go together, and likewise with gladium and nautae?

 

Thanks!

 

 

I would say they "probably" go together, because of the physical location AND it also makes more sense. But in some texts things might be far apart even though they belong together, for literary value. For example, to keep up a sense of suspense.