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Italian grammar is the body of rules describing the properties of the Italian language. Italian words can be divided into the following lexical categories : articles, nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
The base alphabet consists of 21 letters: five vowels (A, E, I, O, U) and 16 consonants. The letters J, K, W, X and Y are not part of the proper alphabet, but appear in words of ancient Greek origin (e.g. Xilofono), loanwords (e.g. "weekend"), [2] foreign names (e.g. John), scientific terms (e.g. km) and in a handful of native words—such as the names Kalsa, Jesolo, Bettino Craxi, and Cybo ...
Diminutives of words that are themselves diminutives are used, for example baadjie (jacket) → baadjietjie (little jacket). Such constructions do not appear in Dutch. Afrikaans has almost identical usage and grammar for diminutive words as Dutch, the language Afrikaans was derived from (detailed above). There are differences in Dutch as ...
An augmentative (abbreviated AUG) is a morphological form of a word which expresses greater intensity, often in size but also in other attributes. It is the opposite of a diminutive.
In Italian phonemic distinction between long and short vowels is rare and limited to a few words and one morphological class, namely the pair composed by the first and third person of the historic past in verbs of the third conjugation—compare sentii (/senˈtiː/, "I felt/heard'), and sentì (/senˈti/, "he felt/heard").
Diminutives in isolating languages may grammaticalize strategies other than suffixes or prefixes. In Mandarin Chinese , for example, other than the nominal prefix 小- xiǎo- and nominal suffixes -儿/-兒 -r and -子 -zi , reduplication is a productive strategy, e.g., 舅 → 舅舅 and 看 → 看看 . [ 3 ]
Italian term Literal translation Definition A cappella: in chapel style: Sung with no (instrumental) accompaniment, has much harmonizing Aria: air: Piece of music, usually for a singer Aria di sorbetto: sorbet air: A short solo performed by a secondary character in the opera Arietta: little air: A short or light aria Arioso: airy A type of solo ...
Italian verbs have a high degree of inflection, the majority of which follows one of three common patterns of conjugation. Italian conjugation is affected by mood, person, tense, number, aspect and occasionally gender. The three classes of verbs (patterns of conjugation) are distinguished by the endings of the infinitive form of the verb: