1. Gender and form of Italian nouns and adjectives

Every Italian noun is either masculine or feminine in gender; there are no neuter nouns. If the thing referred to has biological gender, then the grammatical gender of the noun will generally be the same as the biological gender. But even nouns referring to inanimate objects have grammatical gender, and there is generally no “logical” reason to account for such a noun’s being of one gender rather than the other. That is simply a fact of the language.

1. Most nouns that end in –oin the singular are masculine. Their plural ends in –i (momento, momenti).
2. Most nouns that end in –ain the singular are feminine. Their plural ends in –e (rosa, rose).
3. There are some nouns which end in –ein the singular; some of these are masculine while others are feminine: padre (“father”), madre(“mother”). Their plural ends in –i (padri, madri).

In Italian every adjective agrees in gender and in number with the noun it modifies. Some adjectives have four distinctive forms (with endings like those of the nouns in groups 1 and 2, above):

un ragazzo italiano                 due (2) ragazzi italiani

una ragazza italiana                due ragazze italiane

Other adjectives have only two distinctive forms, one singular and one plural:

un ragazzo OR una ragazza  → francese

due ragazzi OR due ragazze → francesi

Adjectives will normally be listed under their masculine singular forms (in the remainder of this book and elsewhere).

1. Indefinite and definite articles

Indefinite articles

The indefinite article (=English “a” or “an”) has the following forms in Italian:

Masculine                                            Feminine

un (default masculine form)                 una (default feminine form)

uno (before z or s+consonant¹)             un’ (before a vowel²)

Definite articles

The definite article (=English “the”) has the following forms in Italian:

*gli may become gl’ before a word beginning with i.

NOTE: Although the gender and number of the definite article are determined by the gender and number of the noun it modifies, the precise form to be used is determined by whatever word immediately follows the definite article: il signore but l’altro signore and lo stesso signore (stesso = “same”) l’amica but la stessa amica.

¹ This applies to any consonant after s (sp; st; sb, sc)

²  This applies to any vowel.

III. Present tense of avere

Learn to recite this verb by heart.

ho             I have

hai             you have

ha              he (she, it, one) has, you have (polite singular form)

abbiamo     we have

avete          you have

hanno        they have, you have (polite plural form)

VOCABULARY A

NOTE: The definite article is used far more in Italian than in English. For smooth translation, it can often be omitted in the English (ex. Studio la matematica. = I study mathematics.)

VOCABULARY B

1. Contractions + Combinations

You have already seen that several common prepositions combine with the definite article to form one word. Examine the following combinations of a (to, at) with the definite article. (Cf. section VII, page 14, for forms of the definite article.)

al = a + il                               ai = a + i

allo = a + lo                          agli = a + gli

all’ = a + l’                            alle = a + le

alla = a + la

The prepositions da, di, in, and su combine with the various forms of the definite article in much the same way as a does. Study the following table:

All but the first two contracted forms of con (with) are now rare. In older texts, per (for, through) may be found in contracted forms (pel, pei, etc.), but it is not used in this way in modern Italian.

VOCABULARY