Italian grammar
Encyclopedia
Italian grammar is the body of rules describing the properties of the Italian language
. Italian words can be divided into these lexical categories: article, noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection.
The forms l' and un' arise from mandatory elision
of lo, la and una before vowels.
The plural of il dio ("the god") features an irregular definite article, being gli dei instead of *i dei.
(masculine and feminine, with only some instances of vestigial neuter) and number
(singular and plural). Inflection patterns are similar for the two categories:
In the last two examples, only the article carries information about gender and number.
The Italian hard and soft C
and G
phenomenon leads to a few spelling/pronunciation peculiarities in certain cases:
or from a Latinization of foreign words:
Any other noun, both those from Latin with an unusual ending and those derived from languages other than Latin or Greek, and not Latinized (cifra - meaning "digit" - and ragazzo/ragazza - meaning "boy/girl" - are from Hebrew and Arabic respectively, but they are Latinized), and nouns ending with a stressed vowel are not inflected, thus:
There are certain words (neuter in Latin) that are masculine in the singular and feminine or masculine in the plural:
These nouns' endings derive regularly from the Latin neuter endings of the second declension (sg. -um / pl. -a), but there are some from the third declension: e.g. il gregge / le greggi (flock(s), but i greggi works, too); the tradition of calling them "irregular" or "mobile gender" (genere mobile) would come from the paradigm that there are so few nouns of this kind that the existence of neuter can be considered vestigial. The choice of plural is sometimes left to the user, while in some cases there are differences of meaning:
s, "vezzeggiativi" (diminutives with kindness and sympathy nuance), augmentative
s and pejorative
s.
Many other alterations can be built, also through more than one suffix: for example, libro (book) can become libretto (diminutive), librettino (double diminutive), libercolo (diminutive + pejorative), libraccio (pejorative), libraccione (pejorative + augmentative).
Uomo (man), coming from Latin homo, becomes om- in altered forms: omino (diminutive), omone (augmentative), omaccio (pejorative), omaccione (augmentative + pejorative).
of reference; the unmarked
placement for most adjectives (e.g. colours, nationalities) is after the noun. If a noun has many adjectives, usually not more than one will be before the noun . When there is possibility to choose, the second word is the more important, so if the adjective is after the noun, it is more emphasized :
Adjectives are inflected by gender and number:
, relative superlative
and absolute superlative.
The comparative and relative superlative degrees are both formed around the word più (literally "plus", meaning "more" or "most"), for instance:
Viceversa, inverting the order of the words, it's required to substitute più with meno (licterally 'minus', meaning "less" or "few"), for instance:
The absolute superlative, derived from the Latin synthetic superlative in -issimus, is formed by adding -issimo to an adjective: intelligente ("intelligent"), intelligentissimo ("very intelligent"); sporco ("dirty") sporchissimo ("very dirty"). If the two letters before the last vowel are pr or br (aspro, Latin asper, celebre, Latin celeber), the r is removed and -errimo is the suffix used (asperrimo, celeberrimo) (English: very sour, very famous).
Some adjectives form their degrees of comparison irregularly (though with a regular variant also in common use), like
In most cases the possessive adjective is used with an article, usually the definite article
:
And with the indefinite article:
The only exception is when the possessive refers to an individual family member, (unless the family member is described or characterized in some way):
But mamma and papà (or babbo, in Central Italy) (mother and father) usually get the article.
For emphasis, however, possessive adjectives are sometimes placed after a noun. This is usually after words like 'colpa' (fault, sin); 'casa' (house, home); 'merito' (merit); 'piacere' (pleasure); or in vocative expressions.
If the antecedent of a third person possessive (being used as an object) is the subject of the sentence, proprio can be used instead of suo, though the usage of proprio is declining in the spoken language :
adjectives: questo (for items near or related to the first person speaker: English "this"), quello (for items near or related to an eventual third person: English "that"), and codesto (for items near or related to an eventual second person). The usage has undergone a simplification, including the meaning of codesto in quello. Only Tuscan
speakers still use codesto.
s are inflected by person, number and, in the third person, gender.
Literary subject pronouns also have a distinction between animate (egli, ella) and inanimate (esso, essa) antecedent
s, although this is lost in colloquial usage, where lui, lei and loro are used for animate subjects as well as objects, while no specific pronoun is employed for inanimate subjects.
There is also the uninflected pronoun ciò, which is only used with abstract antecedents.
Personal pronouns are normally dropped in the subject
, as the conjugation is usually enough to determine the grammatical person. They are used when some emphasis is needed, e.g. sono italiano ("I am Italian") vs. io sono italiano ("I [specifically, as opposed to others] am Italian").
Notes:
pro-form
s.
Dative and accusative pronouns come before the verb. If an auxiliary verb is used, the pronouns come before the auxiliary . If both dative and accusative pronouns are used, the dative comes first. Pronominal particles ce/ci (to it) and ne (of it) are treated like accusative pronouns for word-order purposes.
Note that the clitic ci acts both as a first person plural accusative pronoun and a pro-form with a different meaning.
Examples:
(Compare with the similar use of objective pronouns and pro-forms in French
and Catalan.)
Finally, in the imperative and infinitive cases, the objective pronouns come once again after the verb, but this time as a suffix:
s have one of three endings, either -are, -ere, or -ire. Exceptions are porre "to place" (from Latin ponere), and a few verbs ending in -urre or -arre, most notably tradurre (Latin traducere) "to translate". Italian grammar does not have distinct forms to indicate specifically verbal aspect
, though different verbal inflections and periphrases do render different aspects, in particular the perfective
and imperfective aspect
s and the perfect tense-aspect combination. While the various inflected verbal forms convey a combinaton of tense
(location in time), aspect, and mood
, language-specific discussions generally refer to these inflection
al forms as "tenses", as in what follows.
Aspects other than imperfective, aorist (that are rendered by simple tenses) and perfect (that is rendered by compound tenses) are rendered in Italian through periphrastical forms which aren't recognized by the canonical Italian grammar as proper tenses.
Examples
Notes
s use avere as their auxiliary verb. Verbs in the passive voice
use essere or venire, with a different meaning (example: la porta è stata aperta, the door has been opened; la porta viene aperta, the door is being opened). For intransitive verbs a reliable rule cannot be given, although a useful rule of thumbs is that if a verb's part participle can take on adjectival
value, essere is used, otherwise avere. Also, reflexive verb
s and unaccusative verb
s use essere (typically non-agentive verbs of motion and change of state, i.e. involuntary actions like cadere (to fall) or morire (to die)).
The distinction between the two auxiliary verbs is important for the correct formation of the compound tenses and is essential to the agreement of the past participle. Some verbs use both, though, like vivere (to live): in recent past tense you can say io ho vissuto or io sono vissuto (I have lived).
The past participle when used with essere (for unaccusative verbs et al. ) follows the usual adjective agreement rules.
For the intransitive verbs taking essere, the past participle always agrees with the subject: lui è partito; lei è partita. This is also true for reflexive verb
s, the impersonal si construction (which, interestingly, requires any adjectives that refer to it to be in the masculine plural: Si è sempre stanchi alla fine della giornata - One is always tired at the end of the day), and the passive voice, which also use essere (Si è sparato - He shot himself, against Lui ha sparato - He shot).
The past participle when used with avere never changes to agree with the subject. It agrees with the object though, in sentences where a pronoun replacing the object is proceeding (e.g. Hai mangiato la mela? - Sì, l'ho mangiata (Have you eaten the apple? - Yes, I have eaten it)).
When the pronoun is first or second person, there is optional agreement: Maria! Giovanni ti ha chiamato / chiamata? - No, non mi ha chiamato / chiamata (Maria! Has Giovanni called you? - No, he has not).
In relative clauses, the agreement is obsolete: La storia che avete raccontata (obsolete) / raccontato non mi convince (The story you told does not convince me).
, the first conjugation verb is parlare (meaning to talk/speak), the second conjugation verb is temere (to fear) and the third conjugation verb is partire (to leave/depart.)
Some third conjugation verbs such as capire insert -isc- between the stem and the endings in the present, e.g., capisco, capisci, capisce, etc. It is impossible to tell from the infinitive form which verbs exhibit this phenomenon, which often originated in Latin verbs denoting the "inchoative" aspect of an action, that is, verbs describing the beginning of an action. There are some 500 verbs like this, the first ones in alphabetic order being abbellire, abolire, agire, alleggerire, ammattire and so forth. In some grammatical systems, "isco" verbs are considered a fourth conjugation, often labelled 3b. There are also certain verbs that end in -rre, namely trarre, porre, (con)durre and derived verbs with different prefixes (such as attrarre, comporre, dedurre, and so forth). They are derived from earlier trahere, ponere, ducere and are conjugated as such.
From the table we can see that the verbs each take their own root, from their class of verb, -are becomes -er-, -ere becomes -er-, and -ire becomes -ir-, the same roots as used in the future indicative tense.
Onto this root, all verbs add on the same ending, depending on the conjugation.
Some verbs do not follow this pattern, but take irregular roots, these include:
Andare (to go) ~ Andr-, Avere (to have) ~ Avr-, Bere (to drink) ~ Berr-,
Dare (to give) ~ Dar-, Dovere (to have to) ~ Dovr-, Essere (to be) ~ Sar-,
Fare (to make/do) ~ Far-, Godere (to enjoy) ~ Godr-, Potere (to be able to) ~ Potr-,
Rimanere (to remain) ~ Rimarr-, Sapere (to know) ~ Sapr-, Sedere (to sit) ~ Sedr-,
Stare (to be/feel) ~ Star-, Tenere (to hold) ~ Terr-, Vedere (to see) ~ Vedr-,
Venire (to come) ~ Verr-, Vivere (to live) ~ Vivr-, Volere (to want) ~ Vorr- etc.
The Italian conditional mood is a mood that refers to an action that is possible or likely, but is dependent upon a condition. Example:
It can be used in two tenses, the present, by conjugation of the appropriate noun, or the past, using the auxiliary conjugated in the conditional, with the past participle of the appropriate noun:
Many Italian speakers often use imperfect instead of conditional and subjunctive. While incorrect, this is somewhat tolerated in spoken Italian (rarely in written Italian, even if it used to be a correct form in past times):
The conditional can also be used in Italian to express "could", with the conjugated forms of potere ("to be able to"), or "should", with the conjugated forms of dovere ("to have to"):
Verbs like capire insert -isc- in all except the noi and voi forms.
. In particular, the auxiliary verb
s essere and avere, and the common modal verb
s potere (ability, to be able to), dovere (duty, to have to), sapere (knowledge, to know how to) and volere (will, to want to) are all irregular. Many of the irregularities are accounted for by the substance of Latin grammar
; in Latin the verb had four principal parts
, of which the third and fourth (perfect stem and perfect passive participle) were formed regularly from the present stem only in the first and second conjugations, whereas in the third and fourth (in -ere with short e and in -ire) the presence of the i on the stem caused a mutation of the following consonants and made irregularities at a very early stage of the language.
The first conjugation has the majority of regular verbs (except "andare" (to go), "fare" (to do, to make (from third Latin conjugation)), "dare" (to give) and "stare" (to stay), which are strongly irregular). Almost every new verb (as neologism) enters in first conjugation (e.g. formattare (to format) is of first conjugation and perfectly regular).
The second conjugation is usually irregular. They are from Latin, where they were irregular too. The few regulars are from Latin second conjugation: like "temere" (to fear), "godere" (to enjoy)... The majority is from Latin third conjugation, which is practically all irregular.
The third conjugation (deriving from Latin fourth conjugation) has two different ways: Greek one (or incohative) with insertion of -sc-, "capire" (to understand), "io capisco" (I understand), and Latin one with no insertion, "sentire" (to feel), "io sento" (I feel). There are some irregulars, but not too many: example, "morire" (to die), "io muoio" (I die). The verb "dire" (to say, to tell) derives from Latin third conjugation, and is strongly irregular.
Most verbs of the second conjugation are irregular in the passato remoto (preterite) tense, which resembles the Latin perfect.
These adverbs can also be derived from the absolute superlative form of adjectives, e.g. lentissimamente ("very slowly"), facilissimamente ("very easily").
There is also a plethora of temporal, local, modal and interrogative adverbs, mostly derived from Latin, e.g. quando ("when"), dove ("where"), come ("how"), perché ("why"/"because"), mai ("never"), sempre ("always"), etc.
of basic prepositions, to which a number of adverb
s can be added that also double as prepositions, e.g.: sopra il tavolo ("upon the table"), prima di adesso ("before now").
In modern Italian the prepositions tra and fra are interchangeable, and often chosen on the basis of euphony
: tra fratelli ("among brothers") vs. fra i tralicci ("between the power pylons").
All the basic prepositions except tra, fra, per and con have to be combined with an article placed next to them.
The subject is usually omitted when it is a pronoun
– distinctive verb conjugations make it redundant. Subject pronouns are considered emphatic when used at all.
Questions are formed by a rising intonation at the end of the sentence (in written form, a question mark). There is usually no other special marker, although wh-movement
does usually occur. In general, intonation and context are important to recognize questions from affirmative statements.
In general, adjectives come after the noun they modify, adverbs after the verb. But: as with French
, adjectives coming before the noun indicate essential quality of the noun. Demonstratives (e.g. questo this, quello that) come before the noun, and a few particular adjectives (e.g. bello) may be inflected like demonstratives and placed before the noun.
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
. Italian words can be divided into these lexical categories: article, noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction and interjection.
Articles
| Gender | Number | Article | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Singular | il/lo | Lo before s + consonant, z, gn, ps, pn, x, y and consonant clusters (disregarding sonorant Sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and... s), l' before a vowel, otherwise il. Note lo iodio ("the iodine"), lo Ionio (the Ionian Sea Ionian Sea The Ionian Sea , is an arm of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Adriatic Sea. It is bounded by southern Italy including Calabria, Sicily and the Salento peninsula to the west, southern Albania to the north, and a large number of Greek islands, including Corfu, Zante, Kephalonia, Ithaka, and... ) where the initial i represents a semiconsonant; on the other hand, it is usual to employ l' before semiconsonantic u in mobile diphthongs: l'uomo "the man", l'uovo "the egg" . However, foreign words beginning with w and used in Italian, like West (referring to the American Old West American Old West The American Old West, or the Wild West, comprises the history, geography, people, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century... ) and whisky, are usually perceived as beginning with a v sound, and the il article is used: il West, il whisky, and Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire... 's opera is La fanciulla del West La fanciulla del West La fanciulla del West is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco. Its highly-publicised premiere occurred in New York City in 1910... . |
| Plural | i/gli | gli before a vowel or z, sc, gn and consonant clusters (disregarding sonorants) | |
| Feminine | Singular | la | l before a vowel: but la iarda ("the yard") for the same reason as before |
| Plural | le | l is used rarely before a vowel |
| Morpheme | Gender | Usage |
|---|---|---|
| Masculine | un | uno before z, sc, gn and consonant clusters (disregarding sonorants) |
| Feminine | una | un before a vowel |
The forms l' and un' arise from mandatory elision
Elision
Elision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
of lo, la and una before vowels.
The plural of il dio ("the god") features an irregular definite article, being gli dei instead of *i dei.
Inflection of nouns and adjectives
Nouns and adjectives generally inflect by genderGrammatical gender
Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
(masculine and feminine, with only some instances of vestigial neuter) and number
Grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
(singular and plural). Inflection patterns are similar for the two categories:
| Gender | Singular | Plural | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | |||
| il capello nero , i capelli neri ("the black hair") | |||
| Feminine | |||
| la bella macchina, le belle macchine ("the beautiful car(s)") | |||
| Masculine and feminine | |||
| il/la comandante intelligente , i/le comandanti intelligenti ("the smart commander(s)") | |||
| Masculine | |||
| l'atleta entusiasta , gli atleti entusiasti ("the enthusiastic athlete(s)") | |||
| All nouns ending with a stressed vowel | singular = plural | la città, le città ("the town(s)") | |
| Non-integrated loanword Loanword A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,... s |
il/la manager trendy, i/le manager trendy ("the trendy manager(s)") | ||
In the last two examples, only the article carries information about gender and number.
The Italian hard and soft C
Hard and soft C
In the Latin-based orthographies of many European languages , a distinction between hard and soft ⟨c⟩ occurs in which ⟨c⟩ represents two distinct phonemes...
and G
Hard and soft G
In the Latin-based orthographies of many European languages , a distinction between hard and soft ⟨g⟩ occurs in which ⟨g⟩ represents two distinct phonemes...
phenomenon leads to a few spelling/pronunciation peculiarities in certain cases:
- Words in -cio and -gio form plurals in -ci and -gi, e.g. bacio / baci ("kiss(es)")
- Words in -cia and -gia have been a point of contention; according to a commonly employed rule, they:
- form plurals in -cie and -gie if the final letter before the suffix is a vowel: camicia, camicie ("shirt(s)"); ciliegia, ciliegie ("cherry"/"cherries").
- form plurals in -ce and -ge if the final letter before the suffix is a consonant: frangia, frange ("fringe(s)"); faccia, facce ("face(s)").
- when the i is stressed, it always remains in plural: farmacia / farmacie ("chemist's shop(s)"), nevralgia / nevralgie ("neuralgia(s)").
- Words in -co and -go behave quite irregularly: "the grammarians are skeptical of any attempt at giving a ruling about this area". There are only partial, empirical rules of thumb:
- plurals are formed with -chi and -ghi if the last letter before the suffix is a consonant or a stressed vowel: fungo / funghi ("mushroom(s)"), stecco / stecchi ("stick(s)"), mago / maghi ("magician(s)"), fuoco / fuochi ("fire(s)")
- plurals are formed with -ci and -gi if the last letter before the suffix is an unstressed vowel: comico / comici ("comedian(s)"), medico / medici ("physician(s)")
- in words ending with -logo suffix, the plural is usually in -gi when -logo means "expert" or "student", corresponding to English -logist (e.g. archeologo / archeologi, "archaeologist(s)"), while it is in -ghi when it means "speech" or "reasoning", corresponding often to English -logue/-log (e.g. catalogo / cataloghi, "catalogue(s)").
- there are exceptions such as amico / amici ("friend(s)"), greco / greci ("Greek(s)"), valico / valichi ("mountain pass(es)"), carico / carichi ("cargo(s)").
Nouns
Most nouns derive from Latin, from GreekGreek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
or from a Latinization of foreign words:
| Latin declension Latin declension Latin is an inflected language, and as such has nouns, pronouns, and adjectives that must be declined in order to serve a grammatical function. A set of declined forms of the same word pattern is called a declension. There are five declensions, which are numbered and grouped by ending and... |
Masculine | Feminine |
|---|---|---|
| 1st (-a / -ae) | poeta / poeti "poet(s)" | rosa / rose "rose(s)" |
| 2nd (-us / -i) | carro / carri "truck(s)" | |
| 3rd (-Ø,-is / -es) | cane / cani "dog(s)" | parete / pareti "wall(s)" |
| 3rd (-as / -ates) | città / città "town(s)" | |
| 4th (-us / -us) | passo / passi "step(s)" | mano / mani "hand(s)" |
| 5th (-ies / -ies) | specie / specie "species" | |
| Greek words | problema / problemi "problem(s)" | crisi / crisi "crisis", "crises" |
Any other noun, both those from Latin with an unusual ending and those derived from languages other than Latin or Greek, and not Latinized (cifra - meaning "digit" - and ragazzo/ragazza - meaning "boy/girl" - are from Hebrew and Arabic respectively, but they are Latinized), and nouns ending with a stressed vowel are not inflected, thus:
- il re / i re ("the king(s)": rex / reges)
- il caffè / i caffè ("the coffee(s)")
- il film / i film ("the film(s)")
There are certain words (neuter in Latin) that are masculine in the singular and feminine or masculine in the plural:
- il braccio / le braccia or i bracci ("the arm(s)")
- l'uovo / le uova ("the egg(s)")
- il ginocchio / le ginocchia or i ginocchi ("the knee(s)")
- il sopracciglio / le sopracciglia or i sopraccigli ("the eyebrow(s)")
These nouns' endings derive regularly from the Latin neuter endings of the second declension (sg. -um / pl. -a), but there are some from the third declension: e.g. il gregge / le greggi (flock(s), but i greggi works, too); the tradition of calling them "irregular" or "mobile gender" (genere mobile) would come from the paradigm that there are so few nouns of this kind that the existence of neuter can be considered vestigial. The choice of plural is sometimes left to the user, while in some cases there are differences of meaning:
- sometimes, for body parts, the feminine/neuter plural denotes the literal meaning while the masculine one denotes a figurative meaning: il braccio ("the arm") / le braccia ("the arms") / i bracci ("the isthmuses", "the inlets"); il corno ("the horn") / le corna ("the horns" of an animal) / i corni ("the horns" as musical instruments)
- sometimes, especially in poetic and old-fashioned Italian, the masculine plural acts as a count nounCount nounIn linguistics, a count noun is a common noun that can be modified by a numeral and that occurs in both singular and plural form, as well as co-occurring with quantificational determiners like every, each, several, etc. A mass noun has none of these properties...
, while the neuter/feminine plural acts as a mass nounMass nounIn linguistics, a mass noun is a noun that refers to some entity as an undifferentiated unit rather than as something with discrete subsets. Non-count nouns are best identified by their syntactic properties, and especially in contrast with count nouns. The semantics of mass nouns are highly...
: il cervello ("the brain") / due cervelli ("two brains") / le cervella ("the cerebral matter"); l'anello ("the ring") / due anelli ("two rings") / le anella ("ringlets"); furthermore, il dito ("the finger") / le dita ("the fingers") and also due dita ("two fingers") / but i diti indici ("the index fingers")
Irregular plurals
There are very few proper irregular plurals in Italian (plurali irregolari). Some of these are:- l'uomo / gli uomini (man/men; lat. homo / homines )
- il dio / gli dei (god/gods; note also the irregularity in the article: gli instead of i)
- il bue / i buoi (ox/oxen)
- il tempio / i templi (temple/temples)
- un belga / dei belgi (Belgian / Belgians)
- il carcere / le carceri (prison (masculine) / prisons (feminine))
- l'ala / le ali (wing/wings) (but "l'ale" is poetically admitted)
- l'arma / le armi (weapon/weapons) (but "l'arme" is poetically admitted)
- la mano / le mani (hand/hands)
- l'eco / gli echi (echo (feminime) / echos (masculine))
Alteration
In Italian, altered nouns are nouns with particular shades of meaning. They are divided into diminutiveDiminutive
In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form , is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment...
s, "vezzeggiativi" (diminutives with kindness and sympathy nuance), augmentative
Augmentative
An augmentative is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size, but also in other attributes...
s and pejorative
Pejorative
Pejoratives , including name slurs, are words or grammatical forms that connote negativity and express contempt or distaste. A term can be regarded as pejorative in some social groups but not in others, e.g., hacker is a term used for computer criminals as well as quick and clever computer experts...
s.
| Suffix | Example | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| diminutivi (diminutive Diminutive In language structure, a diminutive, or diminutive form , is a formation of a word used to convey a slight degree of the root meaning, smallness of the object or quality named, encapsulation, intimacy, or endearment... ) |
-ino | tavolo (table) | tavolino (a small table) |
| -etto | libro (book) | libretto | |
| -ello | bambino (child) | bambinello (a little child) | |
| -icello | monte (mountain) | monticello | |
| -icciolo | porto (port) | porticciolo | |
| vezzeggiativi | -uccio | cavallo (horse) | cavalluccio |
| -acchiotto | orso (bear) | orsacchiotto | |
| -iciattolo | fiume (river) | fiumiciattolo | |
| -olo | figlio (son) | figliolo (also figliuolo) | |
| -otto | cucciolo (puppy) | cucciolotto | |
| accrescitivi (augmentative Augmentative An augmentative is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size, but also in other attributes... ) |
-one | libro (book) | librone (a big book) |
| -accione | uomo (man) | omaccione | |
| dispregiativi (pejorative Pejorative suffix A pejorative suffix is a suffix that attaches a negative meaning to the word or word-stem preceding it. There is frequent overlap between this and the diminutive form.... ) |
-accio | libro (book) | libraccio (a bad book) |
| -astro | medico (medic) | medicastro (quack doctor) | |
| -ucolo | poeta (poet) | poetucolo | |
| -onzolo | medico (medic) | mediconzolo | |
| -uncolo | uomo (man) | omuncolo (an insignificant man) | |
Many other alterations can be built, also through more than one suffix: for example, libro (book) can become libretto (diminutive), librettino (double diminutive), libercolo (diminutive + pejorative), libraccio (pejorative), libraccione (pejorative + augmentative).
Uomo (man), coming from Latin homo, becomes om- in altered forms: omino (diminutive), omone (augmentative), omaccio (pejorative), omaccione (augmentative + pejorative).
Adjectives
In Italian, an adjective can be before or after the noun. Placing the adjective after the noun can alter its meaning or indicate restrictivenessRestrictiveness
In semantics, a modifier is said to be restrictive if it restricts the reference of its head. For example, in "the red car is fancier than the blue one", red and blue are restrictive, because they restrict which cars car and one are referring to...
of reference; the unmarked
Markedness
Markedness is a specific kind of asymmetry relationship between elements of linguistic or conceptual structure. In a marked-unmarked relation, one term of an opposition is the broader, dominant one...
placement for most adjectives (e.g. colours, nationalities) is after the noun. If a noun has many adjectives, usually not more than one will be before the noun . When there is possibility to choose, the second word is the more important, so if the adjective is after the noun, it is more emphasized :
- un buon uomo = a good man (nothing special, a good man)
- un uomo buono = a good man, a man that is good (it is important that he is good, the adjective is emphasized)
Adjectives are inflected by gender and number:
| Gender | Grammatical number | Case 1 | Case 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Masculine | Singular | -o | -e |
| Plural | -i | -i | |
| Feminine | Singular | -a | -e |
| Plural | -e | -i |
Degrees of comparison
Italian has three degrees of comparison: comparativeComparative
In grammar, the comparative is the form of an adjective or adverb which denotes the degree or grade by which a person, thing, or other entity has a property or quality greater or less in extent than that of another, and is used in this context with a subordinating conjunction, such as than,...
, relative superlative
Superlative
In grammar, the superlative is the form of an adjective that indicates that the person or thing modified has the quality of the adjective to a degree greater than that of anything it is being compared to in a given context. English superlatives are typically formed with the suffix -est In...
and absolute superlative.
The comparative and relative superlative degrees are both formed around the word più (literally "plus", meaning "more" or "most"), for instance:
- sono il più scemo fra gli uomini ("I am the dumbest of men")
- sono più scemo di te ("I am dumber than you")
Viceversa, inverting the order of the words, it's required to substitute più with meno (licterally 'minus', meaning "less" or "few"), for instance:
- sono il meno forte del campionato ("I am the less strong of championship", in this particular case "più debole" sounds well)
- tu sei meno scemo di me ("You are less dumb than me", exactly the same meaning)
The absolute superlative, derived from the Latin synthetic superlative in -issimus, is formed by adding -issimo to an adjective: intelligente ("intelligent"), intelligentissimo ("very intelligent"); sporco ("dirty") sporchissimo ("very dirty"). If the two letters before the last vowel are pr or br (aspro, Latin asper, celebre, Latin celeber), the r is removed and -errimo is the suffix used (asperrimo, celeberrimo) (English: very sour, very famous).
Some adjectives form their degrees of comparison irregularly (though with a regular variant also in common use), like
- buono ("good"), migliore / più buono ("better" or "best"), migliore / ottimo / buonissimo ("very good")
- cattivo ("bad"), peggiore / più cattivo ("worse" or "worst"), pessimo / cattivissimo ("very bad")
Possessive adjectives
Possessive adjectives, like articles, must agree with the gender and number of the noun they modify. Hence, mio zio (my uncle), but mia zia (my aunt). So depending on what is being modified, the possessive adjectives are:| Person | Masculine | Feminine | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| 1st sing. | mio | miei | mia | mie |
| 2nd sing. | tuo | tuoi | tua | tue |
| 3rd sing. | suo | suoi | sua | sue |
| 1st pl. | nostro | nostri | nostra | nostre |
| 2nd pl. | vostro | vostri | vostra | vostre |
| 3rd pl. | loro | loro | loro | loro |
In most cases the possessive adjective is used with an article, usually the definite article
Definite Article
Definite Article is the title of British comedian Eddie Izzard's 1996 performance released on VHS. It was recorded on different nights at the Shaftesbury Theatre...
:
| Ho perso la mia penna. | ("I have lost my pen.") |
| Mi piace il mio lavoro. | ("I like my job.") |
| Hanno rubato la mia automobile! | ("They have stolen my car!") |
And with the indefinite article:
| Un mio amico mi ha detto che... | ("A friend of mine told me that...") |
| Ho visto una sua foto. | ("I have seen a photograph of him/her.") |
| Luca è un mio amico. | ("Luca is a friend of mine.") |
The only exception is when the possessive refers to an individual family member, (unless the family member is described or characterized in some way):
| Laura è mia sorella | ("Laura is my sister.") |
| Ieri ho visto mia sorella Diana | ("I saw my sister Diana yesterday.") |
| Questa penna è di mia zia. | ("This pen is my aunt's.") |
But mamma and papà (or babbo, in Central Italy) (mother and father) usually get the article.
For emphasis, however, possessive adjectives are sometimes placed after a noun. This is usually after words like 'colpa' (fault, sin); 'casa' (house, home); 'merito' (merit); 'piacere' (pleasure); or in vocative expressions.
| È colpa sua | ("It is his/her fault") |
| Oh dio mio! | ("Oh, my god!") |
| Arrivederci, amico mio! | ("Goodbye, my friend!") |
| Vorresti andare a casa mia? | ("Would you like to come over to my house?") |
If the antecedent of a third person possessive (being used as an object) is the subject of the sentence, proprio can be used instead of suo, though the usage of proprio is declining in the spoken language :
| Marco e Maria erano in aula. Marco ha preso il proprio libro. | ("Marco and Maria were in the classroom. Marco took his own book.") |
| Marco e Maria erano in aula. Marco ha preso il suo libro. | ("Marco and Maria were in the classroom. Marco took her book.") |
Demonstrative adjectives
Italian originally had three degrees of demonstrativeDemonstrative
In linguistics, demonstratives are deictic words that indicate which entities a speaker refers to and distinguishes those entities from others...
adjectives: questo (for items near or related to the first person speaker: English "this"), quello (for items near or related to an eventual third person: English "that"), and codesto (for items near or related to an eventual second person). The usage has undergone a simplification, including the meaning of codesto in quello. Only Tuscan
Tuscan dialect
The Tuscan language , or the Tuscan dialect is an Italo-Dalmatian language spoken in Tuscany, Italy.Standard Italian is based on Tuscan, specifically on its Florentine variety...
speakers still use codesto.
Pronouns
Italian features a sizeable set of pronouns. Personal pronounPersonal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns used as substitutes for proper or common nouns. All known languages contain personal pronouns.- English personal pronouns :English in common use today has seven personal pronouns:*first-person singular...
s are inflected by person, number and, in the third person, gender.
Literary subject pronouns also have a distinction between animate (egli, ella) and inanimate (esso, essa) antecedent
Antecedent (grammar)
In grammar, an antecedent is a noun, noun phrase, or clause to which an anaphor refers in a coreference. For example, in the passage "I did not see John because he wasn't there", "John" is the antecedent of the anaphor "he"; together "John" and "he" are called a coreference because they both refer...
s, although this is lost in colloquial usage, where lui, lei and loro are used for animate subjects as well as objects, while no specific pronoun is employed for inanimate subjects.
There is also the uninflected pronoun ciò, which is only used with abstract antecedents.
Personal pronouns are normally dropped in the subject
Null subject language
In linguistic typology, a null-subject language is a language whose grammar permits an independent clause to lack an explicit subject. Such a clause is then said to have a null subject. Typically, null subject languages express person, number, and/or gender agreement with the referent on the verb,...
, as the conjugation is usually enough to determine the grammatical person. They are used when some emphasis is needed, e.g. sono italiano ("I am Italian") vs. io sono italiano ("I [specifically, as opposed to others] am Italian").
| First Person | Second Person | Third Person | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Reflexive | Masculine | Feminine | |||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | ||||||
| Subject Subject (grammar) The subject is one of the two main constituents of a clause, according to a tradition that can be tracked back to Aristotle and that is associated with phrase structure grammars; the other constituent is the predicate. According to another tradition, i.e... |
io | noi | tu | voi | - | egli, esso | essi | ella, essa | esse |
| Object Object (grammar) An object in grammar is part of a sentence, and often part of the predicate. It denotes somebody or something involved in the subject's "performance" of the verb. Basically, it is what or whom the verb is acting upon... |
me | noi | te | voi | sé | lui | loro | lei | loro |
| Clitic accusative Accusative case The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions... |
mi | ci | ti | vi | si | lo | li | la | le |
| Clitic dative Dative case The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink".... |
mi | ci | ti | vi | si | gli | loro | le | loro |
| Clitic dat. before acc. | me | ce | te | ve | se | glie- | glie- | glie- | glie- |
Notes:
- 2nd person nominative pronoun is tu for informal. For formal use, the 3rd person form Lei has been used since the Renaissance: it is used like "Sie" in German, "usted" in Spanish and "você" in Portuguese. Previously, and in some Italian regions today (e.g., Campania), voi is used as a formal singular, as in the French "vous". The pronouns lei (third-person singular) and Lei (second-person singular formal) are pronounced the same but written as shown. Formal Lei and Loro take third-person conjugations. The formal plural person is very rarely used in modern Italian; the unmarked form is widely used instead Lei was originally an object form of ella, which in turn referred to a honorificHonorificAn honorific is a word or expression with connotations conveying esteem or respect when used in addressing or referring to a person. Sometimes, the term is used not quite correctly to refer to an honorary title...
of the feminine gender such as la magnificenza tua / vostra ("Your Magnificence") or Vossignoria ("Your Lordship"). Example: "Gino, Lei è un bravo ingegnere. Marco, Lei è un bravo architetto. Insieme, voi sarete una gran bella squadra" "Gino, you are a good engineer. Marco, you are a good architect. Together, you will be a great good team". - Accusative lo and la elideElisionElision is the omission of one or more sounds in a word or phrase, producing a result that is easier for the speaker to pronounce...
to l' before a vowel or before h: l'avevo detto ("I had said it"), l'ho detto ("I have said it"). - When accusative pronouns are used in a compound tense, the final vowel of the past participle must agree in gender and number with the accusative pronoun. For example, hai comprato i cocomeri e le mele? ("Did you buy the watermelons and the apples?") - Li [i cocomeri] ho comprati ma non le [le mele] ho comprate ("I bought them [the former] but I did not buy them [the latter]"). This also happens when the underlyingUnderlying representationIn some models of phonology as well as morphophonology, the underlying representation or underlying form of a word or morpheme is the abstract form the word or morpheme is postulated to have before any phonological rules have applied to it. If more rules apply to the same form, they can apply...
pronoun is made opaque by elision: l'ho svegliato ("I woke him up"), versus L'ho svegliata ("I woke her up"). - In modern Italian, dative gli (to him) is used commonly even as plural (to them) instead of classical loro. So: "Conosci Luca: gli ho sempre detto di stare lontano dalle cattive compagnie" (You know Luca: I have always told him to stay away from bad companies"). And: "Conosci Luca e Gino: gli ho sempre detto..." (...I have always told them...) instead of "... ho sempre detto loro di stare...".
Clitic pronouns
Though objects come after the verb as a rule, this is not the case with a class of unstressed, cliticClitic
In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...
pro-form
Pro-form
A pro-form is a type of function word or expression that stands in for another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context...
s.
Dative and accusative pronouns come before the verb. If an auxiliary verb is used, the pronouns come before the auxiliary . If both dative and accusative pronouns are used, the dative comes first. Pronominal particles ce/ci (to it) and ne (of it) are treated like accusative pronouns for word-order purposes.
Note that the clitic ci acts both as a first person plural accusative pronoun and a pro-form with a different meaning.
Examples:
| Davide lascia la sua penna in ufficio. | (David leaves his pen at the office.) |
| Davide la lascia in ufficio. | (David leaves it at the office.) |
| Davide ce la lascia. | (David leaves it to us. (but also : David leaves it there.)) |
| Davide ce ne lascia una. | (David leaves us one of them. (but also [rare]: David leaves one [of them] there.)) |
| Davide potrebbe lasciarcene una. | (David might leave us one of them (but also [rare]: David might leave one [of them] there.)) |
| or Davide ce ne potrebbe lasciare una. | (exactly the same as above) |
(Compare with the similar use of objective pronouns and pro-forms in French
French grammar
French grammar is the grammar of the French language, which is similar to that of the other Romance languages.French is a moderately inflected language...
and Catalan.)
Finally, in the imperative and infinitive cases, the objective pronouns come once again after the verb, but this time as a suffix:
| Davide lascia la sua penna in ufficio. | (David leaves his pen at the office.) |
| "Lasciala in ufficio!" | ("Leave it at the office!") |
| "Lasciacela!" | ("Leave it to us!" also [less common] "Leave it there!") |
| Davide potrebbe lasciarla in ufficio. | (David might leave it at the office.) |
| "Non lasciarcela!" | ("Do not leave it to us!" also [less common] "Do not leave it there!") |
| Davide dovrebbe lasciarcela. | ("David should leave it to us." also [less common] "David should leave it there") |
- Dative mi, ti, ci, and vi become me, te, ce, and ve when preceding another pronoun ("dammelo" (give it to me)) or develop as a me, a te, a noi and a voi when emphasized ("dallo a me" (give it TO ME)).
- Accusative mi, ti, lo, la, ci, and vi become me, te, lui, lei, noi, and voi when emphasized ("uccidimi" (kill me) against "uccidi me, non lui" (kill me, not him)).
- Dative gli, le, loro (commonly gli) can be developed into a lui, a lei, a loro, when emphasized ("lo sai solo tu: a loro non l'ho detto" (only you know it: I have not told them))
- Dative gli combines with accusative lo, la, li, le and ne (partitive, meaning "of it" or "of them") to form glielo, gliela, glieli, gliele and gliene. These combinations are used for feminine and plural too ("Maria lo sa? Gliel'hai detto?" (Does Maria know it? Have you said it to her?)).
Verbs
Italian verb infinitiveInfinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...
s have one of three endings, either -are, -ere, or -ire. Exceptions are porre "to place" (from Latin ponere), and a few verbs ending in -urre or -arre, most notably tradurre (Latin traducere) "to translate". Italian grammar does not have distinct forms to indicate specifically verbal aspect
Grammatical aspect
In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...
, though different verbal inflections and periphrases do render different aspects, in particular the perfective
Perfective aspect
The perfective aspect , sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed as a simple whole, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. The perfective aspect is equivalent to the aspectual component of past perfective forms...
and imperfective aspect
Imperfective aspect
The imperfective is a grammatical aspect used to describe a situation viewed with internal structure, such as ongoing, habitual, repeated, and similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future...
s and the perfect tense-aspect combination. While the various inflected verbal forms convey a combinaton of tense
Grammatical tense
A tense is a grammatical category that locates a situation in time, to indicate when the situation takes place.Bernard Comrie, Aspect, 1976:6:...
(location in time), aspect, and mood
Grammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
, language-specific discussions generally refer to these inflection
Inflection
In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...
al forms as "tenses", as in what follows.
Simple Tenses
Compound Tenses
| Tense | Italian name | Example | English equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indicative Mood | |||
| Recent Past | passato prossimo | ho fatto | I have done I didIn modern Italian, the true preterite form (today known as the passato remoto) is used only in literary, historic contexts. The compound forms are used instead. |
| Recent Pluperfect | trapassato prossimo | avevo fatto | I had doneThe Trapassato Prossimo (Recent Pluperfect) and the extremely rare Trapassato Remoto (Remote Pluperfect) are separate tenses in Italian though not in English. |
| Future Perfect | futuro anteriore | avrò fatto | I will have done |
| Remote Pluperfect | trapassato remoto | ebbi fatto | I had done |
| Conditional Mood | |||
| Preterite | condizionale passato | avrei fatto | I would have done |
| Subjunctive Mood | |||
| Preterite | congiuntivo passato | (che) io abbia fatto | |
| Pluperfect | congiuntivo trapassato | (che) io avessi fatto | |
Impersonal Forms
| Tense | Italian name | Example | English equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | |||
| Present | infinito presente | fare | to do |
| Past | infinito passato | aver fatto | to have done |
| Gerund | |||
| Present | gerundio presente | facendo | doing |
| Past | gerundio passato | avendo fatto | having done |
| Participle | |||
| Present | participio presente | facente | doing |
| Past | participio passato | fatto | done |
Aspects other than imperfective, aorist (that are rendered by simple tenses) and perfect (that is rendered by compound tenses) are rendered in Italian through periphrastical forms which aren't recognized by the canonical Italian grammar as proper tenses.
Examples
- Present tense, indicative mood, progressive aspect: io sto facendo (English: I'm doing)
- Present tense, indicative mood, inchoative aspect: io sto per fare (English: I'm about to do)
Notes
Compound tense auxiliary verbs
In Italian, compound tenses are formed with an auxiliary verb (either essere "to be" or avere "to have"). Transitive verbTransitive verb
In syntax, a transitive verb is a verb that requires both a direct subject and one or more objects. The term is used to contrast intransitive verbs, which do not have objects.-Examples:Some examples of sentences with transitive verbs:...
s use avere as their auxiliary verb. Verbs in the passive voice
Passive voice
Passive voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. Passive is used in a clause whose subject expresses the theme or patient of the main verb. That is, the subject undergoes an action or has its state changed. A sentence whose theme is marked as grammatical subject is...
use essere or venire, with a different meaning (example: la porta è stata aperta, the door has been opened; la porta viene aperta, the door is being opened). For intransitive verbs a reliable rule cannot be given, although a useful rule of thumbs is that if a verb's part participle can take on adjectival
Adjectival
Adjectival may refer to:* Adjective, a part of speech that modifies a noun or a pronoun* Adjectival noun or sometimes "adjectival", a noun that functions as an adjective, especially in Japanese grammar...
value, essere is used, otherwise avere. Also, reflexive verb
Reflexive verb
In grammar, a reflexive verb is a verb whose semantic agent and patient are the same. For example, the English verb to perjure is reflexive, since one can only perjure oneself...
s and unaccusative verb
Unaccusative verb
In linguistics, an unaccusative verb is an intransitive verb whose subject is not a agent; that is, it does not actively initiate, or is not actively responsible for, the action of the verb. Unaccusative verbs thus contrast with unergative verbs...
s use essere (typically non-agentive verbs of motion and change of state, i.e. involuntary actions like cadere (to fall) or morire (to die)).
The distinction between the two auxiliary verbs is important for the correct formation of the compound tenses and is essential to the agreement of the past participle. Some verbs use both, though, like vivere (to live): in recent past tense you can say io ho vissuto or io sono vissuto (I have lived).
Past participle
The past participle is used in Italian as both an adjective and to form many of the compound tenses of the language. There are regular endings for the past participle, based on the conjugation class (see below). There are, however, many irregular forms as not all verbs follow the pattern, particularly the -ere verbs. Some of the more common irregular past participles include: essere (to be) → stato (same for stare); fare (to do, to make) → fatto; dire (to say, to tell) → detto; aprire (to open) → aperto; chiedere (to ask) → chiesto; chiudere (to close) → chiuso; leggere (to read) → letto; mettere (to put) → messo; perdere (to lose) → perso; prendere (to take, to get) → preso; rispondere (to answer) → risposto; scrivere (to write) → scritto; vedere (to see) → visto.The past participle when used with essere (for unaccusative verbs et al. ) follows the usual adjective agreement rules.
For the intransitive verbs taking essere, the past participle always agrees with the subject: lui è partito; lei è partita. This is also true for reflexive verb
Reflexive verb
In grammar, a reflexive verb is a verb whose semantic agent and patient are the same. For example, the English verb to perjure is reflexive, since one can only perjure oneself...
s, the impersonal si construction (which, interestingly, requires any adjectives that refer to it to be in the masculine plural: Si è sempre stanchi alla fine della giornata - One is always tired at the end of the day), and the passive voice, which also use essere (Si è sparato - He shot himself, against Lui ha sparato - He shot).
The past participle when used with avere never changes to agree with the subject. It agrees with the object though, in sentences where a pronoun replacing the object is proceeding (e.g. Hai mangiato la mela? - Sì, l'ho mangiata (Have you eaten the apple? - Yes, I have eaten it)).
When the pronoun is first or second person, there is optional agreement: Maria! Giovanni ti ha chiamato / chiamata? - No, non mi ha chiamato / chiamata (Maria! Has Giovanni called you? - No, he has not).
In relative clauses, the agreement is obsolete: La storia che avete raccontata (obsolete) / raccontato non mi convince (The story you told does not convince me).
Tense relationship in subordinate sentences
Italian inherits consecutio temporum, a grammar rule from Latin that disciplines the relationship between the tenses in subordinate sentences. Consecutio temporum has very rigid rules. These rules order the subjunctive tense in order to express contemporaneity, posteriority and anteriority in relation with the principal sentence.- to express contemporaneity when the principal clause is in a simple tense (future, present, or simple past,) the subordinate clause uses the present subjunctive, to express contemporaneity in the present.
- Penso che Davide sia intelligente. I think David is smart.
- when the principal clause has a past imperfect or perfect, the subordinate clause uses the imperfect subjunctive, expressing contemporaneity in the past.
- Pensavo che Davide fosse intelligente. I thought David was smart.
- to express anteriority when the principal clause is in a simple tense (Future, or present or passato prossimo) the subordinate clause uses the past subjunctive.
- Penso che Davide sia stato intelligente. I think David has been smart.
- to express anteriority when the principal clause has a past imperfect or perfect, the subjunctive has to be pluperfect.
- Pensavo che Davide fosse stato intelligente. I thought David had been smart.
- to express posteriority the subordinate clause uses not subjunctive but indicative mood, because the subjunctive has no future tense.
- Penso che Davide sarà intelligente. I think David will be smart.
- to express posteriority with respect to a past event, the subordinate clause uses the past conditional, whereas in other European languages (such as French, English, and Spanish) the present conditional is used.
- Pensavo che Davide sarebbe stato intelligente. I thought that David would be smart.
Regular conjugations
The infinitive of first conjugation verbs end in -are, that of second conjugation verbs in -ere, and that of third conjugation verbs in -ire. In the following examples for different moodsGrammatical mood
In linguistics, grammatical mood is a grammatical feature of verbs, used to signal modality. That is, it is the use of verbal inflections that allow speakers to express their attitude toward what they are saying...
, the first conjugation verb is parlare (meaning to talk/speak), the second conjugation verb is temere (to fear) and the third conjugation verb is partire (to leave/depart.)
Indicative mood
| Present | Preterite | Imperfect | Simple Future | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Conj. | 2nd Conj. | 3rd Conj. | 1st Conj. | 2nd Conj. | 3rd Conj. | 1st Conj. | 2nd Conj. | 3rd Conj. | 1st Conj. | 2nd Conj. | 3rd Conj. | |
| io | parlo | temo | parto | parlai | temetti | partii | parlavo | temevo | partivo | parlerò | temerò | partirò |
| tu | parli | temi | parti | parlasti | temesti | partisti | parlavi | temevi | partivi | parlerai | temerai | partirai |
| egli | parla | teme | parte | parlò | temette | partì | parlava | temeva | partiva | parlerà | temerà | partirà |
| noi | parliamo | temiamo | partiamo | parlammo | tememmo | partimmo | parlavamo | temevamo | partivamo | parleremo | temeremo | partiremo |
| voi | parlate | temete | partite | parlaste | temeste | partiste | parlavate | temevate | partivate | parlerete | temerete | partirete |
| essi | parlano | temono | partono | parlarono | temettero | partirono | parlavano | temevano | partivano | parleranno | temeranno | partiranno |
| Recent past = present of avere / essere + past participle | Remote pluperfect = preterite of avere / essere + past participle | Recent pluperfect = imperfect of avere / essere + past participle | Future perfect = simple future of avere / essere + past participle | |||||||||
Some third conjugation verbs such as capire insert -isc- between the stem and the endings in the present, e.g., capisco, capisci, capisce, etc. It is impossible to tell from the infinitive form which verbs exhibit this phenomenon, which often originated in Latin verbs denoting the "inchoative" aspect of an action, that is, verbs describing the beginning of an action. There are some 500 verbs like this, the first ones in alphabetic order being abbellire, abolire, agire, alleggerire, ammattire and so forth. In some grammatical systems, "isco" verbs are considered a fourth conjugation, often labelled 3b. There are also certain verbs that end in -rre, namely trarre, porre, (con)durre and derived verbs with different prefixes (such as attrarre, comporre, dedurre, and so forth). They are derived from earlier trahere, ponere, ducere and are conjugated as such.
Subjunctive mood
| Present | Imperfect | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Conj. | 2nd Conj. | 3rd Conj. | 1st Conj. | 2nd Conj. | 3rd Conj. | |
| io | parli | tema | parta | parlassi | temessi | partissi |
| tu | parli | tema | parta | parlassi | temessi | partissi |
| egli | parli | tema | parta | parlasse | temesse | partisse |
| noi | parliamo | temiamo | partiamo | parlassimo | temessimo | partissimo |
| voi | parliate | temiate | partiate | parlaste | temeste | partiste |
| essi | parlino | temano | partano | parlassero | temessero | partissero |
| Past = present of avere / essere + past participle | Past perfect = imperfect of avere / essere + past participle | |||||
- Third conjugation verbs like capire mentioned above insert -isc- in the first, second, and third persons singular and third person plural of the present.
- Compound forms (past and past perfect) are made by adding the past participle (e.g. parlato) to the corresponding auxiliary form (as "abbia") in the present and imperfect.
Conditional mood
| Present | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st Conj. | 2nd Conj. | 3rd Conj. | |
| io | parlerei | temerei | partirei |
| tu | parleresti | temeresti | partiresti |
| egli | parlerebbe | temerebbe | partirebbe |
| noi | parleremmo | temeremmo | partiremmo |
| voi | parlereste | temereste | partireste |
| essi | parlerebbero | temerebbero | partirebbero |
| Past = present of avere / essere + past participle | |||
From the table we can see that the verbs each take their own root, from their class of verb, -are becomes -er-, -ere becomes -er-, and -ire becomes -ir-, the same roots as used in the future indicative tense.
Onto this root, all verbs add on the same ending, depending on the conjugation.
Some verbs do not follow this pattern, but take irregular roots, these include:
Andare (to go) ~ Andr-, Avere (to have) ~ Avr-, Bere (to drink) ~ Berr-,
Dare (to give) ~ Dar-, Dovere (to have to) ~ Dovr-, Essere (to be) ~ Sar-,
Fare (to make/do) ~ Far-, Godere (to enjoy) ~ Godr-, Potere (to be able to) ~ Potr-,
Rimanere (to remain) ~ Rimarr-, Sapere (to know) ~ Sapr-, Sedere (to sit) ~ Sedr-,
Stare (to be/feel) ~ Star-, Tenere (to hold) ~ Terr-, Vedere (to see) ~ Vedr-,
Venire (to come) ~ Verr-, Vivere (to live) ~ Vivr-, Volere (to want) ~ Vorr- etc.
The Italian conditional mood is a mood that refers to an action that is possible or likely, but is dependent upon a condition. Example:
| Io andrei in spiaggia, ma fa troppo freddo. | ("I would go to the beach, but it is too cold.") |
It can be used in two tenses, the present, by conjugation of the appropriate noun, or the past, using the auxiliary conjugated in the conditional, with the past participle of the appropriate noun:
| Mangerei un sacco adesso, se non stessi cercando di fare colpo su queste ragazze. | ("I would eat a lot now, if I were not trying to impress these girls") |
| Sarei andato in città, se avessi saputo che ci andavano loro. | ("I would have gone to the city, if I had known that they were going.") |
Many Italian speakers often use imperfect instead of conditional and subjunctive. While incorrect, this is somewhat tolerated in spoken Italian (rarely in written Italian, even if it used to be a correct form in past times):
| Se lo sapevo, andavo al mare. | ("If I had known it, I would have gone to the beach.") |
| Se Lucia non faceva quel segno, la risposta sarebbe probabilmente stata diversa. | ("If Lucia had not made that sign, the answer would probably have been different.") |
The conditional can also be used in Italian to express "could", with the conjugated forms of potere ("to be able to"), or "should", with the conjugated forms of dovere ("to have to"):
| [Lui] potrebbe leggere un libro. | ("He could read a book.") |
| [Loro] dovrebbero andare a letto. | ("They should go to bed.") |
Imperative mood
| 1st Conj. | 2nd Conj. | 3rd Conj. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| (tu) | parla! | temi! | parti! |
| (Lei) | parli! | tema! | parta! |
| (noi) | parliamo! | temiamo! | partiamo! |
| (voi) | parlate! | temete! | partite! |
| (essi) | parlino! | temano! | partano! |
Verbs like capire insert -isc- in all except the noi and voi forms.
Non-finite forms
- Infinitive: present: -are, -ere, -ire; past: avere/essere + past participle
- Gerund: present: -ando, -endo, -endo; past: avendo/essendo + past participle
- Participle: present: -ante -ente -ente; past: -ato, -uto (though verbs of the second conjugation almost always have a contracted desinence, e.g. "cuocere" (to cook) "cotto" (cooked)), -ito
Irregular verbs
While the majority of Italian verbs are regular, many of the most commonly used ones are irregularIrregular verb
In contrast to regular verbs, irregular verbs are those verbs that fall outside the standard patterns of conjugation in the languages in which they occur. The idea of an irregular verb is important in second language acquisition, where the verb paradigms of a foreign language are learned...
. In particular, the auxiliary verb
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
s essere and avere, and the common modal verb
Modal verb
A modal verb is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality -- that is, likelihood, ability, permission, and obligation...
s potere (ability, to be able to), dovere (duty, to have to), sapere (knowledge, to know how to) and volere (will, to want to) are all irregular. Many of the irregularities are accounted for by the substance of Latin grammar
Latin grammar
The grammar of Latin, like that of other ancient Indo-European languages, is highly inflected; consequently, it allows for a large degree of flexibility in choosing word order...
; in Latin the verb had four principal parts
Principal parts
In language learning, the principal parts of a verb are those forms that a student must memorize in order to be able to conjugate the verb through all its forms.- English :...
, of which the third and fourth (perfect stem and perfect passive participle) were formed regularly from the present stem only in the first and second conjugations, whereas in the third and fourth (in -ere with short e and in -ire) the presence of the i on the stem caused a mutation of the following consonants and made irregularities at a very early stage of the language.
The first conjugation has the majority of regular verbs (except "andare" (to go), "fare" (to do, to make (from third Latin conjugation)), "dare" (to give) and "stare" (to stay), which are strongly irregular). Almost every new verb (as neologism) enters in first conjugation (e.g. formattare (to format) is of first conjugation and perfectly regular).
The second conjugation is usually irregular. They are from Latin, where they were irregular too. The few regulars are from Latin second conjugation: like "temere" (to fear), "godere" (to enjoy)... The majority is from Latin third conjugation, which is practically all irregular.
The third conjugation (deriving from Latin fourth conjugation) has two different ways: Greek one (or incohative) with insertion of -sc-, "capire" (to understand), "io capisco" (I understand), and Latin one with no insertion, "sentire" (to feel), "io sento" (I feel). There are some irregulars, but not too many: example, "morire" (to die), "io muoio" (I die). The verb "dire" (to say, to tell) derives from Latin third conjugation, and is strongly irregular.
Most verbs of the second conjugation are irregular in the passato remoto (preterite) tense, which resembles the Latin perfect.
| Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present | Preterite | Imperfect | Future | Present | Imperfect | ||
| io | sono | fui | ero | sarò | sia | fossi | sarei |
| tu | sei | fosti | eri | sarai | sia | fossi | saresti |
| egli | è | fu | era | sarà | sia | fosse | sarebbe |
| noi | siamo | fummo | eravamo | saremo | siamo | fossimo | saremmo |
| voi | siete | foste | eravate | sarete | siate | foste | sareste |
| essi | sono | furono | erano | saranno | siano | fossero | sarebbero |
| Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present | Preterite | Imperfect | Future | Present | Imperfect | ||
| io | ho | ebbi | avevo | avrò | abbia | avessi | avrei |
| tu | hai | avesti | avevi | avrai | abbia | avessi | avresti |
| egli | ha | ebbe | aveva | avrà | abbia | avesse | avrebbe |
| noi | abbiamo | avemmo | avevamo | avremo | abbiamo | avessimo | avremmo |
| voi | avete | aveste | avevate | avrete | abbiate | aveste | avreste |
| essi | hanno | ebbero | avevano | avranno | abbiano | avessero | avrebbero |
| Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present | Preterite | Imperfect | Future | Present | Imperfect | ||
| io | posso | potei | potevo | potrò | possa | potessi | potrei |
| tu | puoi | potesti | potevi | potrai | possa | potessi | potresti |
| egli | può | poté | poteva | potrà | possa | potesse | potrebbe |
| noi | possiamo | potemmo | potevamo | potremo | possiamo | potessimo | potremmo |
| voi | potete | poteste | potevate | potrete | possiate | poteste | potreste |
| essi | possono | poterono | potevano | potranno | possano | potessero | potrebbero |
| Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present | Preterite | Imperfect | Future | Present | Imperfect | ||
| io | devo/debbo | dovetti | dovevo | dovrò | debba | dovessi | dovrei |
| tu | devi | dovesti | dovevi | dovrai | debba | dovessi | dovresti |
| egli | deve | dovette | doveva | dovrà | debba | dovesse | dovrebbe |
| noi | dobbiamo | dovemmo | dovevamo | dovremo | dobbiamo | dovessimo | dovremmo |
| voi | dovete | doveste | dovevate | dovrete | dobbiate | doveste | dovreste |
| essi | devono/debbono | dovettero | dovevano | dovranno | debbano | dovessero | dovrebbero |
| Indicative | Subjunctive | Conditional | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Present | Preterite | Imperfect | Future | Present | Imperfect | ||
| io | voglio | volli | volevo | vorrò | voglia | volessi | vorrei |
| tu | vuoi | volesti | volevi | vorrai | voglia | volessi | vorresti |
| egli | vuole | volle | voleva | vorrà | voglia | volesse | vorrebbe |
| noi | vogliamo | volemmo | volevamo | vorremo | vogliamo | volessimo | vorremmo |
| voi | volete | voleste | volevate | vorrete | vogliate | voleste | vorreste |
| essi | vogliono | vollero | volevano | vorranno | vogliano | volessero | vorrebbero |
Adverbs
An adjective can be made into a modal adverb by adding -mente (from Latin "mindly", ablative of "mens" (mind), feminine noun) to the ending of the feminine singular form of the adjective. E.g. lenta "slow (feminine)" becomes lentamente "slowly". Adjectives ending in -re or -le lose their e before adding -mente (facile "easy" becomes facilmente "easily", particolare "particular" becomes particolarmente "particularly").These adverbs can also be derived from the absolute superlative form of adjectives, e.g. lentissimamente ("very slowly"), facilissimamente ("very easily").
There is also a plethora of temporal, local, modal and interrogative adverbs, mostly derived from Latin, e.g. quando ("when"), dove ("where"), come ("how"), perché ("why"/"because"), mai ("never"), sempre ("always"), etc.
Prepositions
Italian has a closed classClosed class
In linguistics, a closed class is a word class to which no new items can normally be added, and that usually contains a relatively small number of items. Typical closed classes found in many languages are adpositions , determiners, conjunctions, and pronouns.Contrastingly, an open class offers...
of basic prepositions, to which a number of adverb
Adverb
An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....
s can be added that also double as prepositions, e.g.: sopra il tavolo ("upon the table"), prima di adesso ("before now").
In modern Italian the prepositions tra and fra are interchangeable, and often chosen on the basis of euphony
Euphony
Phonaesthetics is the claim or study of inherent pleasantness or beauty or unpleasantness of the sound of certain words and sentences. Poetry is considered euphonic, as is well-crafted literary prose...
: tra fratelli ("among brothers") vs. fra i tralicci ("between the power pylons").
All the basic prepositions except tra, fra, per and con have to be combined with an article placed next to them.
| Italian | English | Preposition + article |
|---|---|---|
| di | of, from | del, dello, della / dei, degli, delle |
| a | to, at | al, allo, alla / ai, agli, alle |
| da | from, by | dal, dallo, dalla / dai, dagli, dalle |
| in | in | nel, nello, nella / nei, negli, nelle |
| con | with | con il or col, con lo, con la / con i or coi, con gli, con le |
| su | on, about | sul, sullo, sulla / sui, sugli, sulle |
| per | for, through | per il, per lo, per la / per i, per gli, per le |
| tra / fra | between, among | tra il, tra lo, tra la / tra i, tra gli, tra le |
Sentences and word order
Italian is an SVO language. Nevertheless, the SVO sequence is sometimes replaced by one of the other arrangements (SOV, VSO, OVS, etc.), especially for reasons of emphasis and, in literature, for reasons of style and metre: Italian has a relatively free word order.The subject is usually omitted when it is a pronoun
Null subject language
In linguistic typology, a null-subject language is a language whose grammar permits an independent clause to lack an explicit subject. Such a clause is then said to have a null subject. Typically, null subject languages express person, number, and/or gender agreement with the referent on the verb,...
– distinctive verb conjugations make it redundant. Subject pronouns are considered emphatic when used at all.
Questions are formed by a rising intonation at the end of the sentence (in written form, a question mark). There is usually no other special marker, although wh-movement
Wh-movement
Wh-movement is a syntactic phenomenon found in many languages around the world, in which interrogative words or phrases show a special word order. Unlike ordinary phrases, such wh-words appear at the beginning of an interrogative clause...
does usually occur. In general, intonation and context are important to recognize questions from affirmative statements.
| Davide è arrivato in ufficio. | (David has arrived at the office.) |
| Davide è arrivato in ufficio? | (Has David arrived at the office?) |
| Perché Davide è arrivato in ufficio? | (Why has David arrived at the office?) |
| Perché Davide è arrivato in ufficio. | (Because David has arrived at the office.) |
| È arrivato Davide in ufficio. | ("It was David who arrived at the office" or "David arrived at the office" - depending on the intonation) |
| È arrivato Davide in ufficio? | (Has David, in particular, arrived at the office?) |
| È arrivato in ufficio. | (He has arrived at the office.) |
| Egli è arrivato in ufficio. | (He has arrived at the office.) |
| Chi è arrivato in ufficio? | (Who has arrived at the office?) |
In general, adjectives come after the noun they modify, adverbs after the verb. But: as with French
French grammar
French grammar is the grammar of the French language, which is similar to that of the other Romance languages.French is a moderately inflected language...
, adjectives coming before the noun indicate essential quality of the noun. Demonstratives (e.g. questo this, quello that) come before the noun, and a few particular adjectives (e.g. bello) may be inflected like demonstratives and placed before the noun.
Disputed points in Italian grammar
Among the deprecated Italian grammar uses are:- in spoken informal or dialectal language, the usage of an indicative form where a subjunctive one is prescribed. For Instance: credo che Giorgio ieri fosse a casa ("I believe that yesterday George was at home") is right, credo che Giorgio ieri era a casa is deprecated; se Maria fosse stata a casa, le avrei telefonato ("if Mary had been at home, I would have telephoned her") is preferred by prescriptive grammars, se Maria era a casa le telefonavo is deprecated, even if it is an old usage, found in classic Italian writers.
- the nominative third person pronouns (egli, ella, essi) and the courtesy form (Ella) are being replaced by their accusative forms (lui, lei, loro and Lei).