Italian adjectives

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Contents 1 Adjectival agreement 1.1 Regular adjectives 1.2 Irregular adjectives 2 Positions of Adjectives

Adjectival agreement

In Italian, adjectives agree with the noun they modify in gender and number.

Regular adjectives

Almost all adjectives follow one of two patterns:

Group 1

	Masculine	Feminine
Singular	Ending in -o alto	Ending in -a alta
Plural	Ending in -i alti	Ending in -e alte

Therefore, you have the following:

• il ragazzo alto the tall boy -> i ragazzi alti the tall boys
• la ragazza alta the tall girl -> le ragazze alte the tall girls

Notice the vowel harmony. Both ragazzo and alto end in -o, as with ragazza alta, ragazzi alti, and ragazze alte.

When an adjective ends in -co, its plural form depends on where stress is placed. If stress is penultimate (on the second-to-last syllable) the ending is -chi. If stress is antepenultimate (on the third-to-last syllable) the ending is -ci:

• ubriAco drunk -> ubriachi

-but-

• simpAtico nice -> simpatici

Group 2

	Masculine	Feminine
Singular	Ending in -e amichevole	Ending in -e amichevole
Plural	Ending in -i amichevoli	Ending in -i amichevoli

Therefore, you have the following:

• il ragazzo amichevole the friendly boy -> i ragazzi amichevoli the friendly boys
• la ragazza amichevole the friendly girl -> le ragazze amichevoli the friendly girls

Notice the lack of vowel harmony.

It is an important feature of Italian that all words ending in -o form their plural in -i, words ending in -a form their plural in -e, and words ending in -e form their plural in -i. As in any language, there are exceptions to this rule.

Irregular adjectives

These invariable adjectives have only one form and are used only in the singular:

• ogni every, ogni settimana every week
• qualche some, qualche donna some women
• qualsiasi any, qualsiasi libro any books

Positions of Adjectives

Descriptive adjectives usually come after the nouns they modify:

un ragazzo alto a tall boy

capelli lungi long hair

Some adjectives are normally placed before the nouns they modify:

bello beautiful, handsome

brutto ugly

vecchio old

giovane young

grande large, big

piccolo small, short

buono good

cattivo bad

lungo long

breve short

nuovo new

vecchio old

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