Italian words can be divided into the following lexical categories: articles, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
The Italian hard and soft C and G phenomenon leads to certain peculiarities in spelling and pronunciation: Most nouns are derived from Latin.
-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).
If the two letters before the last vowel are pr or br (e.g., aspro, celebre), the r is removed and -errimo is the suffix used (asperrimo, celeberrimo) ('very sour', 'very famous').
Notes: Although objects come after the verb as a rule, this is often not the case with a class of unstressed clitic pro-forms.
In the infinitive, gerund and, except with third-person courtesy forms, imperative moods clitic pronouns must always be compound to the suffix as enclitics[12] (as in confessalo!
In normal usage, two is the usual limit, although clusters of three can occasionally arise for some speakers,[13] especially with impersonal constructs (e.g. Ce la si sente = "One feels up to it", or Nessuno ha ancora visto l'ultimo film di Woody Allen, quindi ce lo si vede tutti insieme!
Any two cases can be used together, except for accusative + genitive, and word order is strictly determined according to one of the following two patterns:[14] For example: Thus: Clitic forms (except cui) before a verbal form beginning with a vowel (except when they are compound to the suffix) can be apocopated; apocopations are more common before verbal forms è, ho, hai, ha, hanno, abbia, and abbiano of verbs essere and avere, than when they are before verbal forms of other verbs, which are more rare, also apocopations of che are rare, while apocopation of cui is avoided due to phonetic ambiguities with words such as qua (homophone to cu'ha).
The second-person nominative pronoun is tu for informal use, and for formal use, the third-person form Lei (and historically Ella) has been used since the Renaissance.
Lei was originally an object form of ella, which in turn referred to an honorific of the feminine gender such as la magnificenza tua/vostra ('Your Magnificence') or Vossignoria ('Your Lordship'),[18] and by analogy, Loro came to be used as the formal plural.
Previously, and in some Italian regions today (e.g. Campania), voi was used as the formal singular, like French vous.
Based on the ending of their infiniti presenti (-are, -ere, or -ire), all Italian verbs can be assigned to three distinct conjugation patterns.
(Lingua-Italiana.IT)..[20] Just like many other Romance languages, Italian verbs express distinct verbal aspects by means of analytic structures such as periphrases, rather than synthetic ones; the only aspectual distinction between two synthetic forms is the one between the imperfetto (habitual past tense) and the passato remoto (perfective past tense), although the latter is usually replaced in spoken language by the passato prossimo.
[citation needed] 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 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.
This is also true for reflexive verbs, the impersonal si construction (which 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 (Queste mele sono state comprate da loro – These apples have been bought by them, against Essi hanno comprato queste mele – They bought these apples).
It must agree with the object, although, in sentences where this is expressed by a third person clitic pronoun (e.g. Hai mangiato la mela?
In all the other cases where the object is not expressed by a clitic pronoun, the agreement with the object is obsolescent in modern Italian (but still correct): La storia che avete raccontata (obsolete) / raccontato non mi convince (The story you told does not convince me); or compare Manzoni's Lucia aveva avute due buone ragioni[23] with the more modern Lucia aveva avuto due buone ragioni (Lucia had had two good reasons).
Italian inherits consecutio temporum, a grammar rule from Latin that governs the relationship between the tenses in principal and subordinate clauses.
These rules require the subjunctive tense in order to express contemporaneity, posteriority and anteriority in relation with the principal clause.
This subgroup of third conjugation verbs is usually referred to as incoativi, because in Latin the original function of the suffix -sc- was to denote inchoative verbs, but this meaning is totally lost in modern Italian, where the suffix mostly serves a euphonic function.
[6] The Italian subjunctive mood is used to indicate cases of desire, express doubt, make impersonal emotional statements, and to talk about impending events.
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.
Technically, the only real imperative forms are the second-person singular and plural, with the other persons being borrowed from the present subjunctive.
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.
In modern Italian, all the basic prepositions except tra, fra, con and per have to be combined with an article placed next to them.
Of these, con and per have optional combining forms: col, collo, colla, coll', coi, cogli, colle; pel, pello, pella, pell', pei, pegli, pelle; except for col and coi, which are occasionally used, however, these are archaic and very rare.
Among others may be mentioned the famous Grammatica storica della lingua italiana e dei suoi dialetti written by the philologist Gerhard Rohlfs, published at the end of the 1960s.
Suoni, forme, costrutti (Utet, Torino, 1998); and by Lorenzo Renzi, Giampaolo Salvi and Anna Cardinaletti, Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione (3 vol., Bologna, Il Mulino, 1988–1995).