Dire

Present tense: dico, dici, dice, diciamo, dite, dicono

Imperfect: dicevo, etc.

Past absolute: dissi, dicesti, disse, dicemmo, diceste, dissero

Past participle: detto

VOCABULARY A

VOCABULARY B

The endings of the future are the same for all verbs, regular and irregular. They are –ò, –ai, –à, –emo, –ete, -anno. In the regular verbs and in more irregular verbs, they are attached to the infinitive after dropping the last vowel. But note that in the first-conjugation verbs, the a that precedes the final r becomes e.

The infinitive of most irregular verbs is easily recognized from the future form (farò, direte, staremo, daranno). Some irregular verbs have an irregular stem; of the verbs already presented, the following are in this category:

infinitive                 future stem             1^st sing. future

andare                        andr-                   andrò

avere                          avr-                      avrò

essere                        sar-                      sarò

sapere                        sapr-                    saprò

In general, verbs whose infinitives end in –rre, such as porre (cf. page 68), add the future endings to the stem (infinitive minus final e): porrò, porrai, etc. In Italian as in English, the future translates “shall” or “will” plus the meaning of the verb: parlerò –“I shall speak” or “I will speak”; avrete –“You will have,” etc.

NOTE: In translating from Italian to English, the future tense offers no difficulty. It should be noted, however, that it is sometimes used to express probability in the present.

Giovanni non è venuto. Sarà malato. –“John did not come. He must be (probably is) ill.”

Che ora è? –Saranno le dieci. “what time is it? –It must be (probably is) ten o’clock.”

The future perfect, which is formed by adding the past participle of the main verb to the future of the auxiliary (avere or essere), translate “shall have” or “will have” plus the meaning of the part participle: avrete dato –“you will have given”; saranno arrivati –“they will have arrived.”

VOCABULARY A

VOCABULARY B

aver…anni –“to be…years old”

aver bisogno di –“to need”

aver caldo (freddo) –“to be warm (cold)”

aver fame (sete) –“to be hungry (thirsty)”

aver fretta –“to be in a hurry”

aver luogo –“to take place”

aver paura (di) –“to be afraid (of), to fear”

aver pazienza –“to be patient”

aver ragione (torto) –“to be right (wrong)”

aver sonno –“to be sleepy”

NOTE: When these expressions are given in their infinitive form, the last e of avere is regularly dropped, as is the case here. This is another example of apocopation, In addition to the dropping of the final e of infinitives, other examples of apocopation are as follows:

*The final o of masculine nouns, of verbs in the third person plural, and of various other words:

parlan di lui –“they speak of him”

i bei guadagni son facili –“beautiful earnings are easy”

*Future tense forms ending in –anno sometimes drop the –no:

diran tutto –“they will tell everything”

*The final e of adjectives, adverbs, and nouns:

con maggior immediatezza –“with greater immediacy” (page 51)

Eppur si muove! –“It still moves!” (page 78)

il tenor di vita –“the standard of living” (page 56)

VOCABULARY