Talk:Italian grammar

Preterite

Good evening to everybody. I am italian and I would like to say something about preterite. It isn't true that this tense is becoming obsolete as in French; French people don't use it in spoken language, but in Tuscany it is common and in Southern Italy it is used instead of the present perfect too. If you use this tense when you are speaking with a French one, he will wonder about it, but for Italian people it is much more natural, even if it is less common than present perfect. Thank you and sorry if my english is not so good. Stefano — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.12.90.89 (talk) 17:22, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Insomma! Naturalmente nelle narrazioni il passato remoto è usatissimo, ma nessuno si sognerebbe mai di utilizzarlo nella lingua parlata! Tanto per fare un esempio stupido sull'avvenimento appunto più remoto che mi possa venire in mente, quando parli dici "Il Big Bang è avvenuto più o meno tredici miliardi di anni fa..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.48.169.70 (talk) 15:37, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Stub?

You sure? This doesn't look like a stub to me. Looks like you've done a reasonably comprehensive job. Quintucket 02:00, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Now you've done an amazingly comprehensive job, especially for an encylcopedia article. It's very fascinating, especialy as I'm taking castellano, a language very close to italiano. Thanks, and keep up the great work. Quintucket 21:13, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"Un mio" / "Uno dei miei"

I have removed the example that said "Ecco un mio amico" (here is a friend of mine), which needed later pointing out that the usual form would actually be "Ecco uno dei miei amici" (here is one of my friends).

My reasoning for removing it (and changing it into "Luca è un mio amico" [Luca is a friend of mine]) was that it's basically a bad example. The "un mio" (and "un tuo", etc) construction is widely used, and turning it into "uno dei miei" is probably the exeption, not the norm.

After saying both sentences (un mio and uno dei miei) in my head a few times, I came to the conclusion that both are weird simply because both are unlikely to be spoken (at least verbatim) by anyone: if you're going to say that "here is" your friend, you'll probably name that friend, and say "Ecco il mio amico Luca" (or, really, "Questo è il mio amico Luca", or "Ti presento il mio amico Luca" when introducing).

"Uno dei miei" is partitive, and the distinction between it and "un mio" is, well, that the former is partitive, just that. "Uno dei miei" implies that there are others besides that "uno", and often that those others are relevant to the sentence, possibly by not being included in the sentence. "Un mio" doesn't imply there's anything else than that "un", and that if there are others, they're not relevant to what's being said.

LjL 22:06, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

i'm italian, "ecco un mio amico" = Here is a my friend - "Ecco uno dei miei amici" = Here is a friend of mine". In fact it's right that "uno dei miei" is partitive. -- Mara

to me "ecco" would not be a natural choice there. Something like è un amico mio, even without a subject, sounds better to me (but you know we have many local varieties). Anyway "questo/lui è un amico mio" = He is friend of mine (when socially introducing people); "lui è un mio amico" is equally correct but it is more of a plain statement; and if you say "lui è uno dei miei amici" you are implicitly informing your listeners that you have more than just one friend. 95.237.63.103 (talk) 02:57, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Nice work, Philx

I liked your work on subordinate clauses, Philx, and I've cleaned up the English and the formatting. You have given me hope that I can contribute to the Italian wikipedia now and perhaps someone will clean up my work too. Steve Rapaport 08:11, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank, you

Think i'm gonna improve the verbal system, italian as 4 subjuncitve times,all widely used.Philx

Compound tenses

I have added the compound forms to the conditional and subjunctive tables now as you asked me Philx. I think we could save some space by replacing all "First", "Second", "Third" etc. with 1st, 2nd... Once we're done with the Indicative compound tenses we should have the complete list. Wikipedius 23:00 (CET)

Subordinate Clauses

To the people who wrote this page, might you consider adding a subordinate clauses section. IE the use of che/chi/cui/di. "Non so la persona con cui esca" "Non so con chi esca" "Spero di uscire con Michele" "So che esco con Michele" --Xtreambar 13:00, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Che is nominative relative pronoun, chi instead is an interrogative pronoun, cui is the dative form of che and chi pronoun and is often used with a preposition, the differences between non so(better italian, conosco) la persona con cui esca it simply that: con cui is like with whom, con chi is like with who, is a matter of choice and taste altough one can say that con cui is more correct.spero di uscire e so che esco con michele is different in meaning because che is used as a conjunction like di and is not a relative pronoun. The moods used re different because di requires the infinite while che the subjunctive altough one can say spero che io esca con Michele and so di uscire con michele, note that the subjunctive + che is required when the subject of the subordinate is not the same of the regent clause. I hope to get me understood.--Philx 01:38, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Prepositions

The article is missing a section on prepositions.

articles and prepositions are different things! Articles are "il, lo, la, i, gli, le, un, un', una, uno", prepositions are "di, a, da, in, con, su, per, tra, fra" and "del, dello, della, dei, degli, delle, al, allo, alla, ai, agli, alle, dal, dallo, dalla, dai, dagli, dalle etc..."

I noticed this also. I'm learning Italian right now, and a section on prepositions (especially articulate ones) would be extremely helpful. LupoGrigio146 14:30, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

CapPuccino and capPuccini

Is the plural of capuccino capuccini?Cameron Nedland 02:43, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is, but the word is 'cappuccino', with double 'p'. --Stefano 16:18, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Online italian grammar activities

Are these online grammar activities any good to go on the page - feedback please Italian Grammar

The problem with the site is that all content is Flash-based (I don't have an application to view flash content, so I can't evaluate it). Wikipedia has a policy about not linking to Flash sites unless there are no other options; see the external links policy for details. I've added a link to the Open Directory project, so you may want to get the site added there instead. Mindmatrix 15:00, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Dialect

Is this General Italian (I´ve heard some people call General Italian ´´Tuscan´´ and some ´´Roman´´?) or some other local dialect?

It's General Italian. There are no such defined rules for local languages. Of course, also in General Italian, there are small differences related to the areas. For example in the south it's much more used the Preterite. --Stefano 16:17, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

The Italian Standar is local dialect "TUSCAN", but each REGIONE have a local dialect.

Es.: Chair is "sedia" (STANDAR) but in Veneto is "carega"

Wrong! Tuscan dialet is different from scholastic italian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.23.90.220 (talk) 22:02, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Object Pronoun Ci

I have always wondered where 'ci' comes from. In the other romance languages, the first person plural object pronouns start with an 'n.' Spanish and Portuguese have 'nos', French has 'nous', and Romanian has 'ne.' So why in Italian is there a 'c' instead of 'n' like its sister languages? BrandonGagliardo 10:17, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

According to the Devoto-Oli Italian dictionary, 'ci' comes from the truncated form (ce) of a late Latin word, 'hicce', which in turn comes from Latin 'hic', that is 'here'. In fact, in modern Italian 'ci' is used not only as first person plural object pronoun, but also as an adverb meaning more or less 'here' or 'there': ci siamo = here we are, we have arrived, or c'era una volta = once upon a time, literally there was, once, .... Hope this helps, Goochelaar 14:52, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

also, ci has many other uses. it can in many ways mean "to it" or "on it" or "at it" for example take the sentence, "credi ai fantasmi" ("do you believe in ghosts", or more literally, "do you believe to ghosts?" the answer would be "ci credo" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.252.204.239 (talk) 12:31, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Last changes

Don't you think this article is becoming too much "informal"?

Here is the real trouble about Italian language! Because there is not a real rule. [...] So: why vàlico-vàlichi and mànico-mànici? Dio solo lo sa! You can get it as an un-stricted rule [...]

agreed. the most difficult thing about this language (for non speakers to learn) is that none of the rules really work all the time or make sense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.252.204.239 (talk) 12:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

or

If someone has used "le anella" for "gli anelli" (ring(s)) in last century, please, let me know.

I don't think this is the Wikipedia style.Lupo Azzurro 20:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

You are perfectly right. I have done something to steer the article towards a more neutral tone. The main thing that remains to be done is to rework the "Tenses" and "Verbs" sections, which should be unified and made consistent. --Goochelaar 09:42, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Relative pronouns

Does Italian have relative pronouns?

yes, they are: IL QUALE, I QUALI, LA QUALE, LE QUALI but you can use always CHE.

 Es.: Marco, who is 20 years old, is my friend.
      Marco, il quale/che ha 20 anni, è mio amico.

the preterite of temere is temetti, but also temei! temette is temè too, temettero is also temerono! (like all regular verbs in ere). for example. vendere: (io)vendetti or vendei, (egli)vendette or vendè, (essi)vendettero or venderono! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.84.164.123 (talk) 19:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes, CUI (dative case) is used. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.68.64.5 (talk) 07:58, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Verbs in -isc-

I have removed the "method" about third conjugation verbs in whose conjugation the infix -isc- appears:

One method by which to determine which group a particular third conjugation verb belongs to is to count backwards to the fifth-to-the-last letter of the infinitive. If this letter is a vowel, it is probably conjugated like "capire," though this does not work in all situations.

There are more exceptions than verbs conforming to this rule; among them, very frequently used verbs like venire and morire (vengo and muoio, not *venisco and *muorisco!). Whence does it come from?? --Goochelaar 11:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Theese verbs (capire, finire, unire, tradire, etc.) are often considered as "verbs of a fourth conjugation". In any case, please, is it possible to check this link (In Irregular verbs)? I have seen it's not available, or some written errors are occured. This is a link to see the main irregular verbs. In this site it's possible to conjugate all italian verbs(*).--116.68.66.236

That rule is in Italian text books, so it's pretty legit. As the text stated, there are certainly exceptions. Since both "venire" and "morire" are IRREGULAR VERBS, the fact that they don't comply to a general rule should neither surprise nor exclude the rule. Try it on most "-isc-" verbs. It works much better than guess work. --Scotl89 3 November 2007

I have added something more about this subject, plus two references. --Goochelaar 17:33, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, thank you! ...but, remember, (*)I'm Italian!! :-))--116.68.66.236 09:42, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

verbs (and pronouns)

i speak italian (im italian american, so its a little archaic and not QUITE perfect, but i speak it 'natively' in other words i didnt learn it from a textbook) and i noticed that the description of the workings of the verbs is very strange. it doesnt really explain to an outsider how the verbs work. there is a chart, but the chart does not explain how the verbs work. also, an entire set of pronouns seems to be missing from the pronoun chart. they have the disconnected pronouns (such as io tu egli ella etc.) but thier widely used (and necessary) connected counterparts arent there. why is this? i'm guessing because there are so many of them (the verb and tense tend to mutate them), but we could provide the general o, i, a, mo, te, and no. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.177.177.89 (talk) 21:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I do not speak Italian, though I'm in a class. And I am mystified by the (large) table of pronouns, and perhaps by my own weak grip of the terminology. What does it matter that a pronoun is a "clitic"? From what I can tell, a "clitic" is simply a grammatically irreducible bit of sound, not a grammatical construct in itself, nor a case. Perhaps those columns contain (in 1) a form that is not joined to a verb in the written language (but subject to morphing for the sake of euphony) and (in 2) the form taken an enclitic in the written language (and in the spoken, liased, if that's a real word)?

Also, why does reflexive appear only in the 3rd person? Where, in this table, is the "Mi" of Mi lavo le mani? It certainly looks reflexive to me, but perhaps it is considered simply a vanilla accusative pronoun, and 'reflexive' is not a case at all?

Also again, why are constructs like "a me" in the table? Is this not just a prepositional phrase, with the preposition taking an accusative pronoun? That is, Italian has no disjunctive pronoun (as fr 'moi'), but it does have a construct that serves the same purpose, namely "a" + stressed accusative pronoun. Captain Puget (talk) 20:10, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

Tenses examples

I have one question: isn't it possible to have a regular verb in the example of tenses, instead of the irregular fare? A chi mi può capire: sono italiano e il mio inglese scritto è un po' arrugginito... It would be easier to understand for non-Italian speaking... --79.33.210.133 (talk) 22:39, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

i agree. it would make a lot more sense that way (parli inglese molto bene:) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.37.164.205 (talk) 15:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Possible Link Inclusion

Online Italian Help is an extremely good resource for learning Italian online. I think it should be added to the list. Will anyone second that motion? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Adjwilli (talk • contribs) 14:40, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

*Defined

First declension and others are not defined either. This made putting the data into a table difficult.24.65.69.8 (talk) 00:32, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

Online Italian Help

I have an new resource I would like to add to the external links. It's called Online Italian Help. It's basically an Italian-English dictionary, but it also has games, flash cards, grammar explanations, etc. It's really very good. WIll someone second this? --Adjwilli (talk) 17:57, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

Word Order!

I'm Italian and I have a degree in Humanities. I'm disappointed by the part treating the word order. Although in Italian the most common word order is SVO, the Italian syntax and word order are relatively free. You wrote that the SVO order happens "normally [I disagree with the choose of this word: I would rather say that order is just more common than the other ones: in fact the adjective "normal" is related with "correct"], except for certain situations (such as the introduction of an accusative or dative pronoun) or unless some change of order is to be, for some stylistical matter". This is wrong. Even in the spoken language of Standard Italian the SVO arrangement is often replaced by other ones (and of course the same happens within the Standard written language), not only for some stylistical matters and not only thanks to the intoduction of an accusative or dative pronuon. For example, all these arrangements are grammatically correct and they are not unusual at all:

Mangia le lasagne Maria (VOS) "*She eats lasagne Maria"

Maria mangia le lasagne (SVO) "Maria eats lasagne"

Le lasagne mangia Maria (OVS) "*Lasagne Maria mangia"

Also they are possible and grammatically correct the arrangements OSV, VSO and SOV. All the arrangements are possible, and this is something that you have to state. Not only the explanation about the cases where the SVO order doesn't happen is incomplete and wrong, but also the tone of your synthetic explanation seems to emply that the choose of other arrangements is something very rare among the speakers (and writers), even in the case you've pointed out: the introduction of an accusative pronoun after or before the accusative noun (i.e, "Le mangia Maria le lasagne", "Le lasagne le mangia Maria"). But such a speech is indeed typical:

1 (SVO): Io mangerei un primo (“I would like to eat a first course”)

2 (OSV): La pastasciutta Franco la prende sempre qui (*“Pasta, Franco it orders always here”. “Franco always orders pasta here”)

3 (VSO): “Allora, mangio anche io la pastasciutta” (*“Well then, am eating also I pasta”, “Well then, I’m also eating pasta”)

4 (VOS): “Ha consigliato la lasagna Franco, no?” (*"Has recommended the lasagna, Franco, right?”, “It’s lasagna that Franco recommended here, right?”)

5) (OVS): “No, la lasagna l’ha consigliata Elisabetta” (*“No, the lasagna it has recommended Elizabeth”, “No, Elizabeth recommended the lasagna”)

6) (SOV): “Allora, io gli spaghetti prendo” (*“In that case, I the spaghetti am having”, “In that case, I’m having spaghetti”).

I advise you to change radically that part. “It is well-known that Italian has a relatively free word order” (Giuliana Giusti, "Italian", in Joachim Jacobs, “Syntax”, p.1347)

P.S. In the same section you put an example of Italian questions, and you introduced it by saying "Note how in the following examples the Italian word order remains relatively fixed while the English varies somewhat".. It's better you to delete such a statement: who doesn't know Italian enough can think you want to show the English word order is freer than the Italian one! While, as I said, the Italian word order and syntax are relatively free, they're much freer than the English, the German and the French ones, for example.. Also within the questions.

Vittuone (talk) 05:20, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Split up this article?

I hope this article will NOT be split up. The browser's search function (Ctrl-F) couldn't be used any more as it can now, and the links in the contents section offer quite enough and comfortable navigation possibilities. I appreciate this article very much as it is now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 153.96.64.25 (talk) 06:42, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Voi

I have heard that some dialects of Italian use "voi" in the same way that French uses "vous". Does anyone know which dialects those are? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.112.242.125 (talk) 20:18, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

If you are referring to the courtesy form (or "plurale maiestatis" in this case), it's common in Southern and to a less extent in Central dialects, while the "lei" form originated mainly from Northern dialects, though it's now mainstream. In some contexts "voi" is still used in standard Italian nowadays, like when speaking to some really important person (Popes, presidents or other highly regarded authorities) and in literary contexts. It's somewhat common in film dubbings, for example the Italian dubbings of Japanese Anime use "voi" a lot, perhaps to render the extreme formality of some Japanese expressions and it's widely used for movies with historical or epic settings (e.g. Star Wars).

To sum it up, it sounds really formal (at least in Northern Italy), so it is not commonly used, however it's understood without problems everywhere in Italy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.239.177 (talk) 18:30, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Egli/Ella vs. Lui/Lei

Nowadays the pronouns egli/ella are not used anymore, except for grammar books. In the 99% of cases lui/lei are used instead. Even language courses for foreigners only teach lui/lei! Moreover lui/lei can always be used, whereas egli/ella have limited use. Modern (>2000) grammars acknowledge the fact, http://forum.accademiadellacrusca.it/forum_12/interventi/5239.shtml —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.65.156.37 (talk) 19:19, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Written Italian almost exclusively uses egli/ella. We can say that egli/ella is formal while lui/lei is informal: discourses in parliamentary debates always use Ella instead of Lei (e.g. "Ella, signor presidente, ..." "You, mister president, ...") ecc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.222.239.177 (talk) 18:10, 28 September 2012 (UTC)

Nouns - cifra and ragazzo

The article states: "cifra - meaning "digit" - and ragazzo/ragazza - meaning "boy/girl" - are from Hebrew and Arabic respectively", but cifra is certainly Arabic (cifr), while ragazzo is quite obscure. Hebrew words in Italian are Pasqua (Easter), Sabato (Saturday), cabala (kabala) 84.222.239.177 (talk) 19:37, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

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Table of pronouns

The pronouns are confusing. Is this table correct?

Person			Singular		Plural
			Non-formal	Formal	Non-formal	Formal
First			io		noi
Second			tu	Lei	voi	Voi
Third	Masculine	Human	lui	egli	loro	essi
		Non-human	esso
	Feminine	Human	lei	ella		esse
		Non-human	essa

Torneira (talk) 15:08, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

While I've only studied Italian for about a year, I think this table, while not exactly wrong, can be extremely confusing. To my limited knowledge, I don't think "egli", "ella" have something to do with formal and informal forms, nor is the capitalized "Voi".

The table was already fixed, anyway. 123.194.150.216 (talk) 07:43, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

"I did"

The examples given for "Simple tenses" (verbs) are a little confusing. Bar the fact the system is confusing itself it seems "I did" is overused and would cause confusion to someone not familiar with verbal aspects. (Correct me if I'm wrong) but the "I did" in "indicativo imperfetto" could never be used in the same way the "I did" could be used in the "passato remoto" (or the "passato prossimo" as the remoto becomes obselete).

For example I was under the understanding that the "indicativo imperfetto" was the imperfective and the past in a package, so "I was eating; I used to eat cheese now I don't etc..." not the same as "passato remoto" (preterite) "I ate". This graph gives the impression that the imperfect could also be used for simple "I did" statements such as "I ate a sandwich and then I ate a breadstick" whereas I believe in that circumstance we would use "ho mangiato" but never "mangiava".

Any thoughts? 31.54.81.221 (talk) 02:32, 20 November 2014 (UTC)

As you correctly point out the Italian imperfect is not about when an action occurred, but about its duration :mentre leggevo ha squillato il telefono "while I was reading, I received a telephone call/the telephome rang". So leggevo is a process while ha squillato il telefono is a definite or specific point in time. Translating any "I did" by the imperfect facevo would be a mistake; facevo is past continuous meaning "I was doing".

As to the perfective form of the past for completed or punctual actions in current Italian, the usual form is passato prossimo. Italian passato remoto is still in use only in the southern part of the country, and of course in Tuscany where they stick to the purity of the language. "Last year I visited Venice" can be rendered both as "l'anno scorso visitai Venezia" (passato remoto, literary and rather awkward to the average speaker) and "l'anno scorso ho visitato Venezia" (the more naturally sounding passato prossimo). So if in English you would use a past, in Italian your choice should be passato prossimo.

One last remark: the English past present is for any action that started in the past and is lasting until now, eg. "I have studied / I have been studying Italian for three months". In this case in Italian you would always and only use the present tense: Studio italiano da tre mesi. To sum up English present = Italian present; English past present = Italian present; English past = Italian past present; English past continuous = Italian imperfetto. 95.237.63.103 (talk) 02:37, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

ṣifr

cifra - meaning "digit" - and ragazzo/ragazza - meaning "boy/girl" - are from Hebrew and Arabic respectively, but they are Latinized Are you sure? To the best of my knowledge the first word cifra comes from the Arabic word ṣifr This word has a Hebrew counterpart ספר / sefer with a different meaning though (sefer means "book" i.e. a volume recounting or enumerating facts). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.237.63.103 (talk) 01:53, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm a native Hebrew speaker. Sifra/ספרה is digit in Hebrew but this is certainly not an ancient word, I'm not sure if medieval writers used it. My guess is that it comes either from the Arabic ṣifr (does it mean digit in Arabic? I know it as 'zero'), or from the biblical mispar/מספר, which is 'counting' (while in modern Hebrew its a noun-"number"). As those examples are very shaky and not really relevant I'm removing them for now.--Nngnna (talk) 13:10, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

from here; My Translation: "The Arabic name used by al-Khawarizmi for the digit Zero - ṣifr - entered Latin as cifra, and from there into German as ziffer. In 1912, following the German, the Hebrew Languge Committee neologized the word סִפרה". Anyway I don't think this case is notable. As far as I know any word that entered European languages in this period was Latinized, Germanized and so forth in some form. Saying 'usually' is sufficient.--Nngnna (talk) 13:04, 31 August 2019 (UTC)

Combinations

Grufo According to this table, accusative vi also precedes the dative, and when dative si is used as the impersonal pronoun, the se form is only used with ne and the order is accusative – dative I. otherwise. Is that right? I also noticed that it doesn't have any mi-vi combinations at all; is that just an oversight, or are they really ungrammatical? Esszet (talk) 17:31, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

Other native speakers are also welcome to contribute. Esszet (talk) 02:34, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Check the Lepschy's book in the references to clitics. They set out clitic ordering very nicely and economically. A version in Italian is also available.96.42.57.164 (talk) 18:56, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, that was a big help. Esszet (talk) 20:47, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Prego. Unfortunately, the clitic section still needs a lot of work. IMO it doesn't need expansion (it's much too long; shrinkage would be good), but editing for accuracy. This, for example: If an auxiliary verb is used, the pronouns come before the auxiliary, which is countered by ho dovuto farlo. This, also, is false Clitic pronouns come before the verb. It's gradually clarified later on, but the false claim confuses the issue unnecessarily. The point is that in Italian clitics require a verb host, nothing can come between a clitic and its verb host except another clitic, there are two possible sites (proclitic/enclitic)... etc. Also (another issue, but having to do with length), simple transformations probably illustrate most clearly, e.g.

Ho conosciuto Anna. → L'ho conosciuta. 96.42.57.164 (talk) 01:37, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

What do you think should be cut out? It seems fine to me length-wise. The issue with agreement is already covered in the main pronoun table, and my knowledge of enclitization in Italian actually isn't that good. Should I check the Lepschy book again? Esszet (talk) 10:47, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Not so much cutting out as reducing complexity and keeping exemplification to the minimum necessary to illustrate the point at hand clearly (the purpose the transformation example). There's a large amount of material that's overly complex, redundant, or, in some cases, extraneous. -- Yes, by all means keep Lepschy & Lepschy at hand, and also check out Maiden & Robustelli that I've just added to the Italian grammar books list (where Rohlfs doesn't really belong; his volumes are a treasure, but not grammars in the sense readers will expect, and not really concentrated on Italian). Maiden & Robustelli do a good job with the clitics. The trick (skill) will be to boil down the knowledge culled from serious grammars such as theirs to accurate and maximally lucid and economical text for Wikipedia. -- Final plea (intended as friendly) for the moment for anyone working on this: always a sticky point, but at several junctures in this article the objective description of Italian comes awfully close to a sort of finger-wagging schoolmarm prescriptivism; that can be mostly avoided by introducing the concept of register and describing a realistic consensus of what Italian speakers actually do.96.42.57.164 (talk) 17:33, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't see what you mean with length and complexity in the clitic section, and if you want to add a section on enclitization, you're going to necessarily have to make it longer. I poked around online, by the way, and it seems that the system of enclitization in Italian is pretty much the same as that in Spanish, except for the following:

1. Clitics can attach to the past participle when used purely as an adjective (e.g. Il sostegno datomi da…) and can also attach to the present participle, which is pretty much archaic in Spanish
2. Enclitization is possible but not mandatory with negative imperatives (non farlo vs. non lo fare, non ditelo vs. non lo dite, etc.)

Is that right? Esszet (talk) 19:25, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's not wrong, but it's very incomplete and the principles are much simpler (not relevant to this, but if by present participle in Spanish you mean gerund, estoy mirándote type seems to be pretty normal). -- There's no need to add a section on enclitics, and certainly no need to lengthen -- much can be reduced. Just clitics, and their positions. Verb conjugated for subject, proclitic (vedo Maria → la vedo); verb not conjugated for subject, enclitic (vedendo Maria... → vedendola...); both present in the VP, either way (la voglio vedere ~ voglio vederla). Those basic principles worked out properly take it a long way, and then there are various ways to treat the imperatives cogently so that they make sense to people, and elaborate a bit on other cases such as il sostegno datomi type. But at this point it seems the first step to improvement of the article is to get the basics accurate and clear. (In the end it might be best to have a page just for Italian clitics.) In any case, a look at Maiden & Robustelli would be very helpful. Once you get the facts straight, presenting them economically and clearly here will be much easier.96.42.57.164 (talk) 22:59, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

No, I mean present participle. Mirando is the gerund, and there also used to be a present participle, mirante, but it's since become archaic. Aside from that, it seems to be pretty much the same: farlo, averlo fatto, essermi dato, stare facendolo or starlo facendo, verb phrases like the one you mentioned, etc. How is it simpler? And since there obviously needs to be a section on enclitization somewhere, where do you think it should be? Esszet (talk) 11:08, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

We're talking at cross purposes and getting nowhere. See what I said above on the lack of necessity for a special section on enclitics -- or proclitics, for that matter. The point is clitics and the principles of their syntax; treating proclisis and enclisis separately introduces unnecessary redundancy and makes it clumsy to handle dual possibilities such as lo devo fare ~ devo farlo. See above also for simpler, i.e. at a basic level, the principles for selecting proclisis or enclisis are, appunto, simple. // Since Romance languages are continuations of the same language, they're obviously going to share many syntactic properties and have developed differences in others; a contrastive study of Italian and Spanish would outline those, showing similarities, and distinctions (such as no possibility for lo si mangia vs. se lo mangia in Spanish, the consequences of Spanish having lost equivalents of ci and ne, and numerous other points). But that's not relevant here, where the focus is Italian, and the facts must come from detailed knowledge of Italian as established by trained researchers (such as Maiden and Robustelli, both active scholars who are quite good at boiling down their considerable knowledge to coherent illustrations accessible to all). // In brief: one (me, you, anyone) should be trying to create a Wikipedia entry on a topic only after having sorted out the facts well and crafted a clear and accurate presentation. IMO, though, at present the first priority on the Italian grammar page is to replace false statements with factual ones. This, for example: Clitic pronouns come before the verb. If an auxiliary verb is used, the pronouns come before the auxiliary. Getting that sort of opening statement right will set the stage for useful exposition below it.96.42.57.164 (talk) 16:54, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

I really don't see how you can do it without treating them seperately – they are distinct phenomena – but for the time being, I'll just edit the part on placement. We can take care of the rest later on. Esszet (talk) 17:35, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

The only salient distinction between enclisis and proclisis is placement itself with regard to the host verb. The basic principles are identical.96.42.57.164 (talk) 20:03, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Although I looked again, and I do see what you mean with redundancy and all of the examples of clitic usage. Esszet (talk) 17:44, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Okay, good. This needs to be cleaned up: Clitic pronouns usually come before the verb. Very misleading. Also, it would be good to speak of pronouns only when whatever it is is specific to pronouns, and not to other clitics. Clitics in general are best referred to as just clitics, to avoid possible confusion. // If an auxiliary verb is used, clitics go before the auxiliary: L'ho fatto. Not necessarily true: ho dovuto farlo. Generalizations in the article need to be true.96.42.57.164 (talk) 20:03, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

This is why I'd like to make it longer. If I did, it would be much more comprehensive. Also, enclisis and proclisis may simply be putting the same thing in two different places, but since they can't always be used interchangeably (Facciolo, Lo fare, etc.), they need to be addressed separately to a certain extent. Esszet (talk) 23:20, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

The section needs to be shorter, not longer, and this is definitely not the venue for anything near a comprehensive account of Italian clitic behavior, which would be a huge article of its own. But even for that, it would still be necessary to lay out the most fundamental principles clearly, accurately and economically, sans dubious -- and ultimately meaningless -- claims like Clitic pronouns usually come before the verb, the vagueness of certain types of constructions, the half-truth of If an auxiliary verb is used, clitics go before the auxiliary, etc. All of that (and much other wordiness) can be replaced by simple accurate statements and focused examples. With regard to placement, for example, Paola Monachesi, who has studied Italian clitics for many years, has it boiled down further than I did above (which you seem to have ignored):

They are proclitic if the verb is finite and enclitic if the verb is non-finite or imperative.

If that's taken as a starting point for treating the placement question, it's possible, with Occam's Razor duly sharpened, to account for a large amount of material with very compact explanation and just a few examples. // If you really want to have enough knowledge of Italian clitics to be able to construct a good entry here, a two-step process and some patient open-minded concentration should take you there. Diego Pescarini's chapter "Clitic pronominal systems" in Ledgeway & Maiden's The Oxford Guide to the Romance languages, pp. 742-757, is an excellent concise overview that serves as very helpful preparation for delving into the specifics of the essential source, Paola's 1999 book, A lexical approach to Italian cliticization. She wrote for a readership of engaged scholars, thus to some extent the text is "technical" (expressed with precise formalism), but a very solid understanding of fundamentals can be culled from it -- especially from the first chapter -- without decoding the formalist pyrotechnics. Have a look. 96.42.57.164 (talk) 17:03, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

The thing is, that if I do that and get rid of the stuff that doesn't have to be there, it may not end up being shorter in the end. Is that alright? Esszet (talk) 14:44, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

The point isn't really length per se, but content: what needs to be there and only what needs to be there. Notice that the same space taken to say Clitic pronouns usually come before the verb, a statement that then has to be hedged and clarified because it lies somewhere between meaningless and misleading (with a sprinkle of falsehood), can be used for a factual introductory Clitics may either precede or follow the verb... I think once you go through Paola's stuff you'll see that there's no reason for it to be longer; factual descriptive generalizations and illustrations with simple examples will engender economy. Compro la macchina. → La compro. Ho comprato la macchina. → L'ho comprata... Also, she has a nice ordering table even more simple and helpful than the Lepschys' version. Until you can get the book, just Google Monachesi Decomposing Italian clitics; you'll find a pdf of a very informative article -- the trick/skill will be extracting the basics, i.e. not getting sidetracked by all the detail that nourishes the theory-specific points she's making. Wheat/chaff sort of thing. 96.42.57.164 (talk) 16:39, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I just looked up the Monachesi article, and I have to say it wasn't really helpful. I don't think I was making myself entirely clear before, I don't want to write a comprehensive account of Italian clitic behavior, I just want to add, as you said, a section on syntax and when to use what. If you go back to the Spanish article, that's as far as I want to go. Just proclitics, enclitics (including compound infinitives like averlo fatto), and when they can both be used. By the way, Monachesi's table of possible combinations seems too simple; if things like Mi ti mostro are acceptable, it simply isn't comprehensive. If combinations like that are somewhat uncommon in practice, I can say so, but apparently they do exist. Esszet (talk) 12:42, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

If you mean the subsection Clitic pronouns and enclitization in the article Spanish pronouns, a cleaned-up version of that basic format might work, but certainly not in its present form. Note that it's misleading and lacking in accuracy from the very beginning: Object pronouns are generally proclitic -- for starters no attempt whatsoever to describe under what conditions proclisis obtains (simple: finite verbs). Compare the waffling wordiness (and unhelpfulness as explanation -- what could "generally" possibly mean? And why say "generally" when the controlling factors can be identified precisely?) with Monachesi's proclitic if the verb is finite and enclitic if the verb is non-finite or imperative, essentially a nicely boiled-down version of this, from Ur Shlonsky: "Imperatives aside, pronominal clitics in Catalan, Spanish, and Italian (CASPIT) are realized as proclitics on finite verbs and as enclitics on nonfinite ones." I'm not going to mess with the Spanish, but the Italian section could be Clitic placement and ordering, opening with the observation that clitics in Italian are hosted by a verb and inseparable from it, then Monachesi's concise proclisis/enclisis description (and treat imperatives separately). Provide simple illustrations avoiding the "but not..." strategy (notice that that strategy got the author of the Spanish bit into trouble with "but never Se lo da a alguien diferente, likely unnecessarily confusing some readers no end). The Spanish bit again provides the lesson to keep things as simple and straightforward as possible. For example, the river of words beginning "When an accusative third-person non-reflexive pronoun..." under combinations is much more comprehensible as something like "combinations of le + lo(s)/la(s) are realized as se lo(s)/la(s)", then a couple of examples (always helpful if they're transformations, so readers can see clearly what the clitics are "replacing"). 96.42.57.164 (talk) 20:34, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

I guess "generally" might be a little vague there, but as for the other things, keep in mind that this is an encyclopedia and not a beginner's textbook. If you know what clitics and finite forms of verbs are to begin with, you shouldn't have that much trouble with more complicated linguistic ideas, even those like "third-person non-reflexive accusative". Esszet (talk) 18:19, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Precisely because this is an encyclopedia for a wide readership, clarity and accuracy are de rigueur. The characterization "generally" in the context referred to is certainly vague, but not just that; it's meaningless (at best; at worst, misleading) foggy filler where a clear description belongs, thus contrary to the purpose of an encyclopedia article. // It's not expected that most readers will know terms such as clitic or finite/non-finite verb; it's the author's responsibility to paraphrase comprehensibly and illustrate them accurately and economically, not difficult to achieve in either case. The avoidance of mind-numbing concatenations of terminology such as "third-person non-reflexive accusative" in favor of clear exposition does not require great skill. Compare:

When an accusative third-person non-reflexive pronoun (lo, la, los, or las) is used with a dative pronoun that is understood to also be third-person non-reflexive (le or les), the dative pronoun is replaced by se to avoid "le/lo"-like clusters:

When third-person direct object le(s) is used with third-person direct object lo(s) or la(s), the indirect object precedes and is realized as se:

There are various ways to massage the second one if more clarity seems necessary (e.g. begin with "Sequences of l- l- pronouns do not occur", show a transformation le + lo → se lo...); whatever else is done (if anything) should be kept accurate, simple and clear. (And always resist the temptation to resort to untenable teleology. See Pharies' A Brief History of the Spanish Language; he takes apart the myth of avoidance of l- l- rather nicely). 96.42.57.164 (talk) 23:06, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay again, but I'll say one final thing: the use of terms like "clitic" and "finite verb forms" is not limited to this section (just look at the rest of the article); if you do want to make it more easily comprehensible to those without a solid background in grammar, you have quite the task on your hands. Esszet (talk) 16:59, 6 July 2017 (UTC)

Impersonal forms

Nice to include the prospective alongside the progressive, but some knowledgeable massaging is needed here, beginning the with the label impersonal, which may not make sense to naive readers in light of sto mangiando, stavo mangiando, etc., very much personalized. The table of forms included appears to suggest that the intention was to collect non-finite verb forms, but then the exposition got sidetracked into mainly the progressives.

On that note, the notion that progressives, for example, aren't recognized by canonical Italian grammar as proper tenses, that the present progressive is not considered a tense per se (similar repeated for past progressive) needs repair. First off, it's not at all clear what not recognized as proper tenses might mean. And in any case, if sto (stai, sta, etc) and stavo (stavi, stava, etc) -- e.g. sto male, stavo male -- are "tenses", so are sto (stai, sta, etc.) + gerund or stavo (stavi, stava, etc.) + gerund. What may have been meant is that stare + gerund is totally productive, thus there's no reason to view forms other than conjugations of stare itself as paradigmatic, but to some extent that can be argued for complex verbs in general.

The salient distinction with regard to Italian present progressive and what formally looks to be its equivalent in English is not frequency itself, but meaning/usage; frequency is epiphenomenal of the fact that they are not equivalents in that English bare present is not used for present-focused progressive (Hi, Mark! What are you doing? I'm eating! not *Hi, Mark! What do you do? *I eat!) whereas both work in Italian (Ciao Marco! Che fai? Mangio! / Ciao Marco! Che stai facendo? Sto mangiando!).

The claim preterite is becoming obsolete in spoken Italian is at least misleading. In slow retreat, perhaps, but millions of Italians, depending on their geolinguistic origins, use it daily, very naturally. Likewise, If there is no reference to the present, as when speaking of the dead, the perfect is proscribed and the preterite must be used, while a valiant attempt to account for usage such as Dante nacque..., is actually not true as a blanket statement (just now, searching "Dante nacque" vs. "Dante è nato" in Italian Google, the first turned up 5,050 hits, the second 12,100; "Churchill nacque" found 619, "Churchill è nato" 1920).

Not clear what happened in this section, but some of it appears to be the result of falling victim to an especially virulent strain of quixotic prescriptivism. 96.42.57.164 (talk) 19:44, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

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Elision of personal pronouns

Does the extent to which individual personal pronouns are elided vary considerably? I know lo and la are virtually always elided, but I’ve read that ne rarely is. Esszet (talk) 18:45, 23 August 2018 (UTC)