Italian grammar is the body of rules describing the properties of the Italian language. Italian words can be divided into the following lexical categories: articles, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
Articles Italian articles vary according to definiteness (definite, indefinite, and partitive), number, gender, and the initial sound of the subsequent word. Partitive articles compound the preposition di with the corresponding definite article, to express uncertain quantity. In the plural, they typically translate into English as 'few'; in the singular, typically as 'some'. +Definite articleGenderNumberArticleUsageMasculineSingularilStandard masculine singular definite article, used in all cases other than those detailed below. Foreign words beginning with , pronounced or , take il and not lo: il West (referring to the American Old West), il whisky , il Watt , etc.loUsed before words with certain initial sounds: before pronounced as , , or followed by another consonant ("impure s", Italian: S (esse) complicata, S impura, or S preconsonantica) before self-geminating consonants:Self-geminating consonants are always long between vowels. , pronounced as or ; ; ; (or or in loan words, e.g. lo chef) pronounced as before complex consonant clusters , pronounced as or ; as or ; as or , as or , etc., mostly foreign words before or pronounced as the semivowel , (e.g. foreign words such as lo yoghurt, and local words and scientific or geographical names such as lo iodio)l'Used before words that begin with a vowel (l'amico) or (l'uomo).PluraliStandard masculine plural definite article, used for plurals that take il in the singular: i cani (plural of il cane).gliCorresponds to lo and l' in the singular:
before vowels, pronounced /ʎ/ before the consonants listed for lo, pronounced /ʎi/ Il dio ('the god') has the irregular plural gli dei ('the gods'). FeminineSingularlaStandard form of the feminine singular definite article, used before consonants and before when pronounced as semivowel , e.g. la iarda.l'As with l', used before any word that begins with a vowel, not including when pronounced as the semivowel .PluralleStandard form of the feminine plural definite article, never elided.
+Indefinite articleGenderArticleUsageMasculineunStandard masculine singular indefinite article, used before vowels and simple consonants.unoUsed instead of un before "impure s", self-geminating consonants, and complex consonant clusters, following the same rules as lo vs. il above, for example: uno studente.FeminineunaStandard feminine singular indefinite article.un'Used before any word that starts with a vowel, not including when used as semivowel .
{| class="wikitable" border="1" |+Partitive article !Gender !Number !Article !Contraction of |- |rowspan=5|Masculine |rowspan=3|Singular |del |di + il |- |dell' |di + l|- |dello |di + lo |- |rowspan=2|Plural |dei |di + i |- |degli |di + gli |- |rowspan=3|Feminine |rowspan=2|Singular |della |di + la |- |dell' |di + l|- |Plural |delle |di + le
Inflection of nouns and adjectives Nouns have gender (masculine, feminine or, in many instances, both) and inflect in number (singular and plural). When a noun refers to people or animals with natural gender, grammatical gender typically corresponds. The gender each noun is written in is not arbitrary: because most nouns have a masculine and a feminine form, the form the given noun is written in could change the entire structure of the sentence. As in most other Romance languages, the historical neuter has merged with the masculine. A subgroup of these deriving from Latin's second declension are considered feminine in the plural. Subclauses and infinitives are masculine. Adjectives inflect for gender and number in patterns broadly similar to nouns.
+General noun and adjectival endings by number and genderGenderSingularPluralExampleMasculine-o-iil cappello nero, i cappelli neri ('the black hat(s)')Feminine-a-ela bella macchina, le belle macchine ('the beautiful car(s)')Masculine and feminine-e-iil/la comandante intelligente, i/le comandanti intelligenti ('the smart commander(s)')Mixed (historically neuter)-o-ail lenzuolo leggero, le lenzuola leggere ('the light bed sheet(s)')Masculine-a-il'atleta entusiasta, gli atleti entusiasti ('the enthusiastic athlete(s)')Feminine-ie-iela specie estinta, le specie estinte ('the extinct species')All nouns ending with a stressed vowel singular = pluralla città, le città ('the city(-ies)')Non-integrated loanwordsil/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.
Most masculine words that end in -io pronounced as drop the -o and thus end in -i in the plural: vecchio / vecchi ('old'), funzionario / funzionari ('functionary(-ies)'), esempio / esempi ('example(s)'), etc.
The Italian hard and soft C and G phenomenon leads to certain peculiarities in spelling and pronunciation: 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 -ce and -ge if the final letter before the suffix is a consonant: frangia, frange ('fringe(s)'); faccia, facce ('face(s)'). form plurals in -cie and -gie if the final letter before the suffix is a vowel: camicia, camicie ('shirt(s)'); ciliegia, ciliegie ('cherry'/'cherries'). Note that the presence of an i in the plural ending has no impact on the pronunciation in this case.Accademia della Crusca, Plurali difficili. . 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 irregularly: for some words the plural form causes the hard consonant to become soft, and for others the consonant remains hard. "The grammarians are skeptical of any attempt at giving a ruling about this area." There are, however, certain 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)'). Words in -ca and -ga form plurals in -che and -ghe, e.g. amica / amiche ('female friend(s)')
Nouns Most nouns are derived from Latin. Many of these are themselves borrowed from Greek (e.g. poeta below). Although Italian nouns do not inflect for case, they are derived from a mixture of the Latin nominative and accusative cases:
+Derivation of noun inflectionsLatin declension (nominative/accusative)Italian singular/pluralMasculineFeminine1st (-a, -ae / -am, -ās) -a, -e amica / amiche 'female friend(s)'1st & 2nd (-a, -i / -, -)This class emerged in 13th Century Old Italian. Presumably the plural ending changed to -i because these nouns were masculine. See Dynamics of Morphological Productivity by Francesco Gardani, p. 427.-a, -ipoeta / poeti 'poet(s)'ala/ali 'wing(s)'2nd (-us, -ī / -um, -ōs) -o, -i amico / amici 'friend(s)' 3rd (-is, -ēs / -em, -ēs) -e, -i cane / cani 'dog(s)' parete / pareti 'wall(s)'4th (-us, -ūs / -um, -ūs) -o, -i passo / passi 'step(s)' mano / mani 'hand(s)'5th (-ēs, -ēs / -em, -ēs) -e, -i fede / fedi 'faith(s)'
Nouns ending in any letter other than -a, -e or -o, as well as nouns ending in a stressed vowel, are normally invariable in the plural. Thus: la gru / le gru ('the crane(s)', from Latin grūs / grūes) la città / le città ('the city(ies)', contracted form of archaic cittade, cittadi, from Latin cīvitātem, cīvitātēs) il caffè / i caffè ('the coffee(s)') il film / i film ('the film(s)')
There are certain words (derived from Latin second-declension neuter nouns) that are masculine in the singular and feminine or masculine in the plural. Examples include: 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 as well: 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 type that the existence of neuter can be considered vestigial (compared to Romanian, which has many more nouns of the masculine singular–feminine plural type, and as such are usually classified as a separate neuter gender). The choice of plural is sometimes left to the user, while in some cases there are differences of meaning:Accademia della Crusca, Plurali doppi 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 noun, while the neuter/feminine plural acts as a mass noun: 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')
Most noun stems are derived from the accusative: Latin socer/socerum begets Italian suocero, and Latin pēs/pēdem begets Italian piede. There are a few exceptions, however, such as uomo from Latin homo/hominem and moglie from Latin mulier/mulierem. Neuter third-declension nouns may bequeath Italian nouns either from the nominative/accusative case (e.g. capo from caput, cuore from cor) or from the oblique case used for other cases and for the plural (e.g. latte from lac, lact-, giure from ius, iur-).
Irregular plurals There are a few genuine irregular plurals in Italian (plurali irregolari). Most of these were introduced in Vulgar Latin, but some derive from irregular Latin plurals. Examples include: ('man'/'men'; Latin ) ('god(s)'; note also the irregularity in the article: gli instead of i) ('ox(en)'; Latin )