Italian Grammar Quiz

Grammar of the Italian Language

• Italian grammar is the set of rules describing the properties of Italian.

• Italian words are divided into ten categories, including articles, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, and verbs.

• Italian articles vary according to definiteness, number, gender, and the initial sound of the subsequent word.

• Nouns have gender and inflect in number, and the gender each noun is written in is not arbitrary.

• Adjectives can be placed before or after the noun and are inflected for gender and number.

• Italian has three degrees of comparison: comparative, relative superlative, and absolute superlative.

• Personal pronouns are inflected for person, number, case, and gender.

• Clitic pronouns generally come before the verb, but in certain types of constructions, they can also appear as enclitics.

• In Italian, it is possible to append more than one clitic to a single verb, and apocopated forms are used before a verbal form beginning with a vowel.

• Italian features altered nouns, including diminutives, vezzeggiativi, augmentatives, and pejoratives.

• Italian originally had three degrees of demonstrative adjectives: questo, quello, and codesto, but the usage has undergone a simplification.Italian Verbs: Conjugation, Tenses, and Aspects

• Italian makes use of the T-V distinction in second-person address.

• Verbs express distinct verbal aspects by means of analytic structures such as periphrases.

• Based on the ending of their infiniti presenti (-are, -ere, or -ire), all Italian verbs can be assigned to three distinct conjugation patterns.

• The only aspectual distinction between two synthetic forms is the one between the imperfetto (habitual past tense) and the passato remoto (perfective past tense).

• Compound tenses expressing perfect aspect are formed with either auxiliary verb avere ("to have") for transitive verbs and some intransitive verbs and with essere ("to be") for the remaining intransitive verbs, plus the past participle.

• The passive voice of transitive verbs is formed with essere in the perfective and prospective aspects, with venire in the progressive or habitual aspect.

• The past participle is used in Italian as both an adjective and to form many of the compound tenses of the language.

• Italian inherits consecutio temporum, a grammar rule from Latin that governs the relationship between the tenses in principal and subordinate clauses.

• The infinitive of first conjugation verbs ends in -are, that of second conjugation verbs in -ere, and that of third conjugation verbs in -ire.

• Many third conjugation verbs insert an infix -sc- between the stem and the endings in the first, second, and third persons singular and third person plural of the present indicative and subjunctive.

• While the majority of Italian verbs are regular, many of the most commonly used are irregular.

• The second conjugation combines the second and third conjugation of Latin.Italian Grammar: Adverbs, Prepositions, Syntax, Disputed Points, and Grammar Books

• Italian adverbs are formed by adding -mente to the feminine singular form of adjectives, and they can also be derived from the absolute superlative form of adjectives.

• Italian has a closed class of basic prepositions, and they can be combined with adverbs that also double as prepositions.

• All basic Italian prepositions except tra, fra, con, and per have to be combined with an article placed next to them.

• The preposition su becomes su di before a pronoun, but some speakers use su di before a word beginning in u for euphonic reasons, which is regarded as incorrect by grammarians.

• Italian is an SVO language, but the SVO sequence can be replaced by one of the other arrangements, especially for reasons of emphasis and style in literature.

• The subject is usually omitted when it is a pronoun, and subject pronouns are considered emphatic when used at all.

• Italian questions are formed by a rising intonation at the end of the sentence, and intonation and context are important to recognize questions from affirmative statements.

• In general, adjectives come after the noun they modify, adverbs after the verb, and demonstratives come before the noun.

• Disputed points in Italian grammar include the use of the subjunctive mood, the use of prepositions with infinitives, and the use of the Italian passato prossimo tense.

• The first Italian grammar was printed by Giovanni Francesco Fortunio in 1516, and several Italian and foreign scholars have published works devoted to its description, including Gerhard Rohlfs, Luca Serianni, Alberto Castelvecchi, Lorenzo Renzi, Giampaolo Salvi, and Anna Cardinaletti.

• The most complete and accurate grammar in English is A Reference Grammar of Modern Italian by Martin Maiden and Cecilia Robustelli.