Nouns with an accent on the last syllable

Words whose last syllable is stressed carry a graphic accent on the last letter (always a vowel). Most of them come from longer words of archaic origin, which have dropped the last syllable, and are therefore known as "truncated nouns"; they are easily told because of the last accented vowel:

metà (either half or halves);
virtù (either virtue or virtues);
viltà (cowardness, either singular or plural);
bontà (goodness, either used to indicate the quality, or the object itself, i.e. le bontà = the good things, the good food); etc.

Other words with an accent on the last vowel, though not real truncated nouns (because they were not originated from longer nouns), behave in the same way:

caffè (either coffee or coffees);
falò (either great fire or great fires); etc.

SHORTENED NOUNS

On the opposite end, there are several nouns which are often "shortened" in common speech, as if they were truncated nouns, but have no accent.

bicicletta (bycicle) is shortened in bici (either singular or plural);
fotografia (photograph) is shortened in foto (either singular or plural);
metropolitana (subway, also mentioned above) is shortened in metro; etc..

In official texts, their full spelling is preferred, although their short form is sometimes used for compounds, like fotoamatore (amateur photographer), etc.
Obviously only the short version has one inflection, while the full-length noun has ordinary singular and plural forms (fotografia sing., fotografie plur.).

MONOSYLLABIC NOUNS

Also monosyllabic nouns, which are very few in Italian, behave as truncated words, because their only syllable carries the accent (although a graphic accent is not indicated, except for tè):

re (either king or kings); tè (either tea or teas); all musical notes: do (C), re (D), mi (E), etc.

NOUNS OF GREEK ORIGIN ENDING WITH...si

These nouns end with ...esi, ...isi, ...osi, they are feminine, and in most cases they belong to specific fields (either philosophical, or mathemathical, or medical, etc.); some of them, though, do often occur in everyday's speech too.
These are a few common ones:

tesi (feminine) both thesis and theses;
ipotesi (feminine) both hypothesis or hypotheses and;
paralisi (feminine) both paralysis and paralyses;
osmosi (feminine) osmosis (normally used in singular form, though the Italian plural is the same);
catarsi (feminine) catharsis (same as above for plural).

As you see, also English uses the Greek root, and forms a plural by only changing the penultimate vowel i into e.

Other nouns with one single inflection are very few, and should be considered exceptions, therefore they cannot be classified. An example is:

vaglia = masculine, both money order and money orders.

 

2.4   ARTICLES

Articles can prove a little tricky to English speakers, because English only has two: the (definite article) and a (indefinite), and the only variation is the use of an (instead of a) when nouns start with a vowel: a box, an eye.
In Italian, though, articles need to match the noun they relate to, both by gender and by number: for example, translating the lady and the man different articles have to be used (la donna and l'uomo), as well as for the cat and the cats (il gatto and i gatti).

Furthermore, Italian language uses articles more often than English: general nouns and numerals sometimes require them, whereas in English they are usually omitted ("he prefers wine to beer" in Italian would be translated "he prefers the wine to the beer"); in the same way, "I was born in the 1963" sounds queer in English.

Finally, Italian articles also have to match phonetically the word coming next, to produce a more fluent sound, and they do this by modifying their basic inflection.....

But don't panic! Mastering these articles is a much easier task than it might seem from this description, and once you become familiar with the sound of Italian language (more than with the actual rules), your ears will help you more than your memory.
So, let's become familiar with each of them, one at a time:

DEFINITE ARTICLES

· LO (masculine, singular)
it is used before nouns starting with a z (at the beginning of a word, it always sounds as English "dz", not "tz"), and with nouns starting with clusters s + consonant (sb..., sc..., sd... etc.):

lo zucchero (the sugar)
lo zoccolo (the clog)
lo scambio (the exchange)
lo spazio (the space)

· IL (masculine, singular)
it is used when the noun starts with any consonant not belonging to the previous case:

il cane (the dog)
il mare (the sea)
il castello (the castle)
il treno (the train)
il sole (the sun)

· LA (feminine, singular)
it is used whith nouns starting with any consonant:

la casa (the house)
la forza (the strength)
la scatola (the box)
la zuppa (the soup)

· L' (both masculine and feminine, singular)
this is the elision of lo or la: their vowel has been dropped, and an apostrophe has taken its place; you can see from the examples how no space separates the article from the following letter.
It is used whith nouns starting with a vowel. The loss of the article's vowel is to provide a swifter sound, as the sound of two vowels would "slow down" the pronounciation:

l'occhio (masculine, pronounced " loh' kkyoh", the eye)
l'acqua (feminine, pronounced " lah' kkwah", the water)
l'impatto (masculine, " lym pahttoh", the impact)
l'aria (feminine, " lah ryah", the air)

· GLI (masculine, plural)
it is used whith nouns starting with:
- vowels,
- consonant z,
- clusters made of s + another consonant (sb..., sc..., sd... etc.),
- cluster gn:

gli artisti (the artists)
gli elefanti (the elephants)
gli infedeli (the infidels)
gli occhi (the eyes),
gli uomini (the men)
gli zoccoli (the clogs)
gli studenti (the students)
gli scandali (the scandals),
gli gnomi (the gnomes)

· I (masculine, plural)
it is used whith nouns starting with consonants which do not belong to the previous case:

i cavalli (the horses)
i signori (the gentlemen)
i rami (the branches)

· LE (feminine, plural)
it is used whith any noun (either starting with a consonant or a vowel):

le ville (the villas)
le ali (the wings)
le piante (the plants)
le espressioni (the expressions)
le scarpe (the shoes)

Note that le does not follow the elision rule as for the singular form. See also the bottom of the page for a further minor note.

INDEFINITE ARTICLES

As in English, only singular forms exist:

· UNO (masculine, singular)
it is used in the same cases which require the definite article lo is used (see above):

uno zio (an uncle)
uno sconto (a discount)
uno steccato (a fence)

· UN (masculine, singular)
it is used in the same cases which require the definite articles il and masculine l' (see above):

un bottone (a button)
un osso (a bone)
un soldato (a soldier)
un amico (a friend)
un gioco (a game)
un uccello (a bird)

· UNA (feminine, singular)
it is used with nouns starting with any consonant:

una scala (a ladder)
una torcia (a torch)
una zucca (a pumpkin)

· UN' (feminine, singular)
it is the elision of una, used when nouns start with any vowel. The apostrophe "binds" the article to the following letter, both in spelling (no space) and in pronounciation, as for the l' article above:

un'anima (pronounced "w nah nymah", a soul)
un'elica (pronounced "w neh lykah", a propeller)
un'orma (pronounced "w nohr mah", a footprint)

The full spelling una is also accepted when the following noun starts with i: i.e. un'importante scoperta (an important discovery) may sometimes be spelled una importante scoperta, but this happens rather seldom, so simply stick to the general rule.

 

When plural nouns are indefinite, they simply do not use an article, or they use the partitive form: i.e. cats (no article) or some cats (partitive), coins or some coins (partitive), etc. Partitive will be dealt with further on, so for the time being simply disregard its use.

Summarising this (apparently) difficult scheme, the following table will make articles much more easy to memorize:

 

DEFINITE ARTICLES

INDEFINITE ARTICLES

 

(matching noun starts with...)		masculine singular	feminine singular	masculine plural	feminine plural		masculin singular	feminine singular
Z or S+consonant		lo	la	gli	le		uno	una
any other consonant		il	la	i	le		un	una
vowels		l'	l'	gli	le		un	un'

 

The article's gender and number is very important because, as already explained in paragraph 2.1 and paragraph 2.2, the noun's inflection alone might not always clearly tell whether the gender is masculine or feminine, singular or plural:

 

libro (masculine)	book		ape (feminine sing.)	bee
il libro	the book		l'ape	the bee
un libro	a book		un'ape	a bee
porte (feminine pl.)	doors		ospiti (masculine)	guests
le porte	the doors		gli ospiti	the guests
mano (fem. sing., irregular)	hand		atleta (masc., non-standard)	athlete
la mano	the hand		l'atleta	the athlete
una mano	a hand		un atleta	an athlete
gesta (fem. pl., irregular)	human acts, deeds		gesti (masculine)	gestures
le gesta	the acts, the deeds		i gesti	the gestures

The importance of matching the article with the noun is even greater when the latter have the same inflection for singular and plural form, as foreign or truncated nouns (see paragraph 2.2), because in these cases whether the noun is singular or plural can be told only by the article:

 

computer (masculine)	computer		computer (or computers)	computers
il computer	the computer		i computer (or i computers)	the computers
un computer	a computer
età (feminine)	age		età	ages
l'età	the age		le età	the ages
un'età	an age