Italian nouns

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This page used to include a discussion of italian pronunciation, NOT the grammar of italian nouns. There is a much better explanation of Italian pronunciation to be found at Italian pronunciation.

Italian nouns have gender (either masculine or feminine) and number (singular or plural).

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Gender

Italian nouns are split into two genders, masculine and feminine. Although most nouns denoting male humans are masculine and most nouns denoting female humans are feminine, all other nouns are also classified as being either masculine or feminine even if they are inanimate. Therefore "telephone" in Italian is masculine (il telefono) and "desk" is feminine (la scrivania). The gender of most nouns is fairly random so it will have to be memorized. This can be done by memorizing the noun with its corresponding article, as the article will always betray the gender of a noun where the noun ending does not. There are other useful guidelines though.

  • Most masculine nouns end in -o, as in il telefono above.
  • Most feminine nouns end in -a, as in la scrivania above.
  • Nouns ending in -e can either be masculine or feminine: lo scaffale shelf is masculine, but la torre tower is feminine.

If nouns denoting a person have inherent gender (man/woman, boy/girl) that natural gender corresponds to the Italian grammatical gender.

  • l'uomo (man) is masculine, and la donna (woman) is feminine
  • il ragazzo (boy) is masculine, and la ragazza (girl) is feminine

Notice that both masculine nouns end in -o and both feminine nouns end in -a. There are other nouns denoting people that end in -ista corresponding to English -ist. They are either masculine or feminine according to the natural gender of the person referenced.

  • il giornalista is a male journalist, and la giornalista is a female journalist.

There are numerous other nouns that end in -a which in fact are masculine, and only masculine. These nouns are of Greek origin and usually end in -ma or -eta.

il clima climate
il problema problem
il programma program
il sistema system
il poeta poet
il pianeta planet

Some Italian suffixes correspond to a gender.

-zione, -sione, and -gione are feminine suffixes: la situazione situation, l'espolsione explosion, la stagione season
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Number

Like English, Italian nouns can be both singular and plural. Unlike English, the process of pluralization entails changing the last vowel of an Italian word, not simply adding -s.

  • Singular nouns ending in -o form their plural in -i.
il ragazzo -> i ragazzi
il telefono -> i telefoni
ATTENTION: l'uomo -> gli uomini NOT *gli uomi
  • Singular masculine nouns ending in -a also form their plural in -i.
il clima -> i climi
il problema -> i problemi
  • Singular feminine nouns ending in -a form their plural in -e.
la ragazza -> le ragazze
la scrivania -> le scrivanie
  • All words ending in -e form their plural in -i, regardless of gender:
lo scaffale -> gli scaffali
la stagione -> le stagioni

When a word ends in -co/-ca, the masculine plural form ends in either -ci or chi.

l'amico -> gli amici
il greco Greek -> i greci Greeks
il sindaco mayor -> i sindaci mayors
-but-
il bosco wood/forest-> i boschi woods
il turco Turk -> i turchi Turks
il fuoco fire -> i fuochi fires

The feminine plural form always ends in che.

l'amica -> le amiche
la giacca jacket -> le giacche jackets

When a word ends in -go/-ga, the plural forms typically end in -ghi and -ghe. When the suffix is -ologo the ending is -ologi.

l'albergo hotel -> gli alberghi hotels
il catalogo catalogue -> i cataloghi
la collega female colleague -> le colleghe female colleagues
la paga packets -> le paghe packets
-but-
il psicologo psychologist -> psicologi psychologists
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Irregular plurals

A few words in Italian have an irregular plural. We have already met uomini (<uomo) above. There is a small group of words which have in essence two plural forms.

il osso bone -> le ossa and gli ossi, bones
il dito finger -> le dita and i diti, fingers
il braccio arm -> le braccia and i bracci, arms
l'uovo egg -> le uova and gli uovi, eggs

The irregular forms are used to indicate a grouping, while the regular plural is used to indicate multiple separated units. So, le ossa would mean something like skeleton in English, but gli ossi would describe scattered bones on the ground.


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